


Talk Like a Pirate Day

by Skinner (psiten)



Series: Fifteen Mokona on a Dead Man's Chest [2]
Category: Tokyo Babylon, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, X/1999, xxxHoLic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Ninja, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Brief Moments of Aoki Seiichirou/Kasumi Karen, Discussion of Potential Monou Fuuma/Shirou Kamui, Discussion of Potential Monou Kotori/Shirou Kamui, Drama, Dubious Consent, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Hints of Clow Reed/Ichihara Yuuko in the Background, Hostage Situations, Humor, Light Bondage, M/M, One-sided Declarations of Arisugawa Sorata/Kishuu Arashi, Pervasive Overtones of Sakurazuka Seishirou/Sumeragi Subaru, Pirates vs Ninjas, Quick Cameo by Doumeki Shizuka/Watanuki Kimihiro, Residual Angst from Past Ashura-ou/Fay D. Fluorite, gratuitous sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-25
Updated: 2011-05-10
Packaged: 2017-10-14 02:44:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psiten/pseuds/Skinner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a faraway time, in a universe slightly askew to this one, circumstances beyond anyone's control led to a fierce and bitter rivalry between Pirates and Ninjas, but Kurogane doesn't care about that. His only concern is to retrieve Princess Sakura and Syaoran from the Pirate King's ship... where Fai is happily making his life complicated.</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>"Are you this accommodating with all the shipwrecked sailors who wash up on your decks?"</p>
  <p>"Just the tall, dark, and mysterious ones," the fair man shot back. "When they keep staring at me like you do, anyway."</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ahoy, Matey!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beltenebra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beltenebra/gifts).



> "Fifteen Mokona on a Dead Man's Chest" is comprised of stand-alone short stories that can be read on their own, but as the stories go on, it will probably make more sense if you start [at the beginning](http://archiveofourown.org/works/51943).

>   
>  _**Ahoy, Matey!** (interj) friendly greeting, generally between equals_   
> 

 

     The inner halls of the Ninja Union were the last place he'd ever expected to visit again. Princess Tomoyo had seen to it twelve years ago that Yuuko didn't own him anymore, and once you were out, you were out. No one who wasn't hers saw the inside of that compound and lived. Card-carrying union ninja came to you if Yuuko was willing to deal, whispering through darkened windows and leaving notes on throwing stars. But this time, the note had said to present himself.

     She was lazing on her throne, all smirks and legs, with the question of where she'd hidden her weapons the least of a man's worries. Twelve years, and she hadn't changed at all. He stood tall and straight-backed, nodding only his head in place of a bow and handing the Princess's wrapped offering to a lackey who appeared from the shadows. No one he knew. No one of consequence -- he could tell.

     He waited for her to speak first. This visit was for information, and he would take whatever cooperation the Princess's gifts would afford without divulging or asking for more, and then he was off to complete his mission -- with or without help from the Union.

     "Kurogane," she purred around the shaft of her long pipe. "What a pleasant... well, I can't really call it a surprise. But it's a pleasant reunion all the same. So my darling Tomoyo needs a favor, does she?" The ninja mistress extended a hand to the lackey to accept the package. "What have we got here?"

     He'd known her long enough to know that she wasn't asking. Yuuko had always preferred to open the box and find out herself rather than to hear an announcement. There were so few things she didn't know. One corner of the purple velvet wrapping fell at a time to reveal a dark mahogany chest polished so bright you could almost see the curious light of her eyes reflecting off of it. She slowly pushed up the lid and the blood-ruby curve of her lips broke into a smile, then a laugh. Setting the box on a table by her throne, she took out two lop-eared, plush lumps with permanently sewn grins -- one black, one white -- and hugged them to her chest.

     "Made by the Princess's own hands, I'd say by the craftsmanship. Generous indeed. I think I'll call them Mokona." Yuuko turned back to him, as serious as she ever seemed to be. "Tomoyo will have exactly the assistance she requires, Kurogane. To think dear little Sakura was kidnapped by pirates," she tsked. "And her bodyguard as well... What was his name again?"

     "Syaoran," he told her. And it hadn't been just any pirate that took them. The boy was more than a match for your average salt-faring scalliwag.

     "Syaoran, of course..." The Mistress of Ninja sat up straighter in her seat and set down her pipe at her side. "You trained him yourself, didn't you, Kurogane? This must be a terrible blow. And do you really think you'll avenge your honor as his master by stowing away on some ship and trying to bring down the Pirate King himself?"

     "I'll bring them home safely. From what I heard of his fight, neither my honor nor his needs repair, but mine certainly would if I left them and did nothing."

     She set the stuffed toys she'd dubbed 'Mokona' aside and favored him with half a smile. "Well, you're in luck. My men were able to locate the 'Dragon of Heaven', and they've even been able to confirm that the hostages are still alive. Your young protege looks like he's tangled badly with half the crew, at least, in what I understand to be escape attempts, but he's kept his feet and the Princess Sakura is completely unscathed. The ship will be putting into a secret harbor near Darsret tomorrow to take on supplies."

     "Thank you." He nodded his head again and turned to leave. Why Yuuko had needed him in person just to relay that, he couldn't say, but it was all he needed to find a way onto that ship.

     But instead of letting him go, she waved him closer, with the kind of smile he'd learned never to trust. "Oh, no, no, no. Kurogane, we're not through. Tomoyo offered such a fine gift. If I were to send you away with nothing but that, she'd have overpaid. And I will never have it said that I overcharge my customers. Now, as it so happens, I have a special resource that I think I'll lend you for an hour or two -- but it'll be our little secret, all right?"

     "I have no secrets from my Princess," Kurogane replied.

     "Done." Yuuko wouldn't argue that, of course. It had been part of the deal Princess Tomoyo had made for his service, and the Mistress never went back on a deal. With a hand cupped to her mouth, she called out, "Watanuki!" and a slim figure clothed in all black and a rather cliché amount of fishnet appeared at her side as if out of thin air.

     "Yes, Mistress," he said, dropping a surly sigh. "Your sake and shark-fin soup will be done any moment, but _some patience_ \--"

     "Maru and Moro can bring me the soup. I have more important work for you."

     The young ninja, whom he was certain he'd seen somewhere before, exploded into a cloud of red fury, arms and legs moving so fast that he looked like he had a dozen of each. "Maru and Moro? They'll _ruin_ it!! Have you ever seen the way they pour soy sauce? I cannot and will not allow--" Just as suddenly as he'd begun the flurried motion, he screeched to a standstill and gave her a well-deserved suspicious eye. "You think something's more important than cooking for you?"

     "We have a guest, Watanuki. Surely you remember Kurogane."

     He struck a pose of bent limbs as if he couldn't decide whether he wanted to jump ten feet in the air or duck behind Mistress Yuuko's throne. " _Sempai?!_ " he squealed -- and Kurogane cringed deep in his heart at hearing a ninja make a sound like that, but at least now he remembered the boy. He'd been an apprentice starting two years before Kurogane had left the Union, and a skilled one, but not someone he would have expected to survive training. It would seem Mistress Yuuko had decided she could keep him without needing him to be any less high-strung. Once he'd finished exlaiming nonsense, he moved onto, "But, but, but you--" He whipped his head toward Yuuko. "Princess Tomoyo--" And once more he gawked at Kurogane. " _What?!_ "

     "The Princess Tomoyo has requested our aid in outfitting Kurogane for a particularly difficult infiltration, and I'm afraid you're the only one with the specialized knowledge required. Just a few tips. I'm sure he'll be a quick study."

     Watanuki puffed up enough that one might have thought his upturned nose would poke a hole in the roof. "Well, it's about time my expertise and top-notch work around here were recognized. There's no one like me for teaching a man to infiltrate..." He paused, and Kurogane could see the cogs in his brain jamming up against an impasse. He had to admit some fear that the young ninja's head would explode in a puff of steam. "What, exactly, are you infiltrating?"

     "A pirate ship," Kurogane answered and -- rather to his surprise -- Watanuki's head actually did appear to explode in a puff of steam. He also stopped moving completely, without even a blink to show he was still alive, and the only reason Kurogane had to believe that he wasn't an automaton whose inner workings had fused was the reddening tone of his face.

     A tomato blush traveled fast down from his brow to his chin and deepened to a sickly purple as he turned his head in short, shaky jerks to face Yuuko. "A... pirate... ship...?"

     "He plans to retrieve the Princess Sakura and her personal guard from the 'Dragon of Heaven' herself, right from under the nose of the Pirate King. Now, Watanuki, don't you think that such a delicate operation deserves the fruits of your close, personal... dare I say... _intimate_ knowledge of pirates?"

     "Pi- _rate_! A pi- _rate_! Not pi- _rates_! Singular! One! Un! Uno! Yon sel! Bir! Egy! Ein! Jedan! Satu! Uks! Viena! Isa! Wiehed! Mmoja! Less than two, and _certainly not three_! And don't say 'intimate' like the sex means I like him! I hate that smarmy bastard! Gyah..." He shook his fists with a truly impressive level of violence at the heavens, and yelled with a kind of volume that managed to make Kurogane wince. "God damn you, Doumeki! I hope you choke on a popcorn kernel and fall to an embarrassing death from your own mizzen-mast, _whatever the hell that is_! I am going to kill you the next time I see you, do you hear me?!"

     "I'm sure he does," Yuuko laughed. "Now, run along to the training hall and teach Kurogane what he needs to know -- and please don't let him leave until you're certain he can pass for a high-seas brigand."

     Kurogane couldn't help wondering about the circumstances as he followed the muttering, stomping figure away to the training hall, but decided it was best not to ask.

     An affair with a _pirate_? Really? And 'Doumeki', he'd said... Had someone trusted enough to be cooking Yuuko's meals gotten himself in bed with the infamous Captain Doumeki Shizuka of the Queen Cassandra? There were some who said he wasn't too many deaths away from a place on the Pirate King's council. No wonder Yuuko wanted to keep that 'resource' a secret. Not that she could be having much luck with the way Watanuki seemed to scream.


	2. Drivelswigger

>   
> _**Drivelswigger** (n) one who has studied too much nautical terminology_   
> 

 

     The way his sempai was staring at him, red eyes all narrowed and considering, was -- Watanuki felt -- unfairly judgmental. "First of all, I would have you know," he declared, and shook his finger in Kurogane's face, "I do not like pirates. I am not a pirate sympathizer. I have to take allergy medication before I go into bars now, just in case that stupid, awful Doumeki decides he's pulling into port and wants to torture me for an evening."

     "Oh?" His sempai raised an eyebrow without showing any sign of backing down from his clear assumption that he, Watanuki Kimihiro, was willingly carrying on with a smelly, awful pirate. "I hadn't picked you out for liking it kinky."

     "I do not-- Aaah!" Watanuki pulled on his hair, exasperation getting the better of him yet again. It was a wonder he hadn't gone bald yet. "That's not what I meant! Shut up! And with that kind of mouth on you, I doubt you'll need much of my help..." After what he hoped was not too awkward a pause, he added, "... Sempai." Slightly too late, he'd remembered that it was Kurogane he was talking to -- _the_ Kurogane, who had singlehandedly held off an entire army at the Kichijouji Pass. Literally singlehandedly. Earlier that day, he'd broken his left arm in three places taking out the enemy's cannons, and he'd only had his right to wield the famous sword, Ginryuu, that even now Watanuki could see resting at the ninja's hip. The living legend, who could snap even him -- one of the Union's elite -- in half like so many twigs.

     Perish the thought. Moving on to new thoughts instead.

     "The first thing you'll need to remember is that you cannot underestimate the size of a pirate's boots." Watanuki matched his sempai's dubiousness -- eyebrow for eyebrow -- with the force of his own convictions. "Forget those sensible slippers. Forget sneaking around silently anywhere. You'll need enormous leather boots -- the heaviest and clompiest you can manage -- and ideally they should look a bit worse for wear, like you've worn them through a few sea storms. Just tell yourself that the camouflage they provide outweighs all the obvious ludicrosity of them." He circled the older man and clucked his tongue while he examined the stealth-appropriate all-black outfit, complete with subtle body armor and hidden pockets. "We're going to have to give you a complete makeover, I'm afraid. You'll need a puffy white shirt that's aged yellow, and a frock coat that's seen better days -- we are making you into a destitute pirate, are we not?"

     The other ninja narrowed his eyes.

     But non-destitute pirates didn't go out looking for ships, which was the plan, so threadbare it was. "Right. So we might be able to get away without the stupid hat in that case. You'll want to secure a dirk to your waist, and you can keep a throwing knife in your boots -- goodness knows you'll have enough room -- but be careful to avoid showing that you've got any other throwing weapons. No stars, no kunai. While you're undercover, just use those two knives for everything you can. Are we clear?"

     Kurogane crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. "Everybody who's ever seen a pirate knows all that. I wasn't born yesterday." Patience seemed to be wearing thin. Before long, he'd have a ... _disappointed_ sempai on his hands, and Mistress Yuuko would be none too happy if this didn't go well. He'd be hard-pressed to say which sounded more dangerous -- not that it mattered, since both were quite dangerous enough to kill him or make him wish he were dead. Really, at certain degrees of infinity, there was no functional reason to satisfy one's curiosity.

     Clearing his throat to stall for time, he tried, "Well, good. Then we can skip the introduction. And may I assume you already know that pirates are actually capable of using proper diction, and you should not try to communicate solely in the syllable, 'Arrr'?" The other ninja nodded. "How about giving a fake name? Do you know a good one to pick? Not that I think you wouldn't, of course. I'm just trying to figure out what ground we have to cover. Thoroughness is key."

     "I'm sure." The unamused and understandably impatient Kurogane leaned against the wall with a scowl. "As it happens, I've got a name, though it's not fake. The 'Pink Ross' went down off the coast with all hands last month. I had a run-in with her navigator once, Burt Bellamy Breath-Wallace. I can pass for him, no problem. And saying I'm in navigation will be more convincing than pretending I'm a sailor. I can read the stars just fine."

     Watanuki had to hand it to him. That was good. No wonder people called him the best.

     And still those rather unnerving blood-red eyes fixed him with _that look_ \-- a look like to say Watanuki ought to provide some good information very fast, or Kurogane would eviscerate him with his glare because he didn't appreciate wastes of his time. Damn Yuuko! How was he supposed to have an advanced Life of Pirates curriculum at the ready, on no notice, when he didn't even like thinking about them!? In. Any. Way. Except possibly recreational ways, which was a bad habit he was trying to break. And that was just one pirate, and that was _in spite_ of him being a pirate, and not because.

     His sempai squinted at him curiously. "Your boyfriend didn't teach you how to sail, did he?"

     " _Doumeki is not my boyfriend!!_ " Watanuki yelled before thinking twice, and even after thinking twice it still seemed like a good idea. "He is a series of completely meaningless, happenstance-only drunken one-night stands! All right, so we were only drunk the once. And the single nights happen to be in succession whenever he's in port, and thus currently exclusive, and shut up -- don't look at me like that! But no, my pirate _stalker_ did not teach me how to sail. Not that I care or want to know!! Sailing is a nasty practice that just leads to barnacles and salty cuticles and a chronic rum fixation! Do you want to know what he tells me? He tells me, 'Oh, of course I'm an ill-mannered, lascivious brute. The great and all-powerful Pirate Code demands it! _Arrrr_ -ticle Blah-de-blah-blah says I have the right -- nay, the duty -- to steal your journals and decipher your codes if you're going to keep them in reach! And whoever said that the compressor pockets behind my knees were allowed to be in his reach!? I ask you!"

     Stupid Doumeki and his stupid pirate games. The rest of the night, however entertaining, could never be a suitable recompense for the shit he put up with.

     "Do you have an article number for that?" his sempai asked while he fumed.

     "Eighteen," Watanuki spat back. As if he could forget the smug, self-satisfied way he quoted those damn things.

     "What's Article One?"

     With a roll of his eyes, Watanuki remembered Doumeki's story about how he'd taken command of the 'Queen Cassandra' by tricking the former captain and first mate into thinking they had a chance at a better ship, and stranding them with a leaky wreck. "If it can't be got for love or money, getting it any way you can is fair game," he answered.

     "Two."

     "There's no such thing as an unbeatable ship." Doumeki liked to apply that one very loosely and metaphorically, too -- to just about any defense he needed to breach. Annoying as hell, that was.

     "Three."

     Watanuki whipped around into his sempai's face and screamed, "Parlay!" at the top of his lungs. What the hell did Kurogane think this was, anyway? Pirate question hour?

     Oh. It was question hour, though, wasn't it? Mistress Yuuko had said so. That was why she'd called him.

     Oops. Now if only he could stop his eyebrow from twitching madly. At least the other ninja seemed in good sorts for the first time this interview. "Just... 'parlay'?" Kurogane asked.

     "That jackass Doumeki says it's French for, 'You have the right to demand an audience with the highest-ranked officer aboard, but if you do it while you're in the middle of a fight or about to get keelhauled, everyone will think you're a pansy trying to buy time, because that's what you are'."

     "I see." Kurogane, whom Watanuki thought more and more was pompous enough and enough of a jackass to pass annoyingly well for a pirate if he just changed his clothes, despite being one of the greatest ninja in history, narrowed his eyes at him again. "And what's Four?"

     He thought back to one of the earliest nights he'd run into that damn pirate captain, when he'd been objecting to some of the more questionable ways he'd interact with Himawari-chan at the bar -- all the flirting and the hand-kissing and hat-tipping and otherwise flaunting that piratey nature of his. "Common thievery is uncouth. Piracy is about style." He scoffed, rolling his eyes at the idea. "And based on his actions in general, what he means by 'style' is being a bossy, self-entitled nincompoop who doesn't take no for an answer and has no sense of fashion or efficiency _whatsoever_ , and treating everyone and everything as if he owns them."

     The next thing he knew, Kurogane had Watanuki's collar in his fist, and Watanuki was fighting his urge to make an escape attempt by telling himself this wasn't actually going to lead to a death threat. "Exactly how much of the Pirate Code has he told you?" his sempai asked in a hiss.

     "Ah... well..." Watanuki thought quickly in his head and counted up to the best of his ability. "Of... well, of forty-three articles, which is the highest he's quoted, I'd say I know... ah... thirty-fo... No. No, thirty-six. It's thirty-six."

     "And you weren't even going to mention that?"

     Oh. He'd forgotten. Their training materials on pirates had only the most basic information about the rules by which a pirate lived, mostly reverse-engineered based on behavioral patterns, which were notoriously erratic because pirates were the most illogical and insensible brutes in this or any other world -- no exceptions whatsoever. How were they to have known that if you got drunk and had sex with a pirate, he'd just tell you what those rules were? And would never shut up about them?

     None of which meant Watanuki _wouldn't have thought of that eventually_ , just because he hadn't _yet_. Sempai or not, legendary ninja or not, able to turn him into minced Watanuki pie ready for the oven in half a second or not, _some_ assumptions were simply uncalled for. He gave a great huffy sniff and started pulling Kurogane's hand off his collar.

     "Well, I suppose since _someone_ interrupted me to ask about _sailing_ when I was in the middle of the process I was so responsibly following to make sure there were no gaps in your basics, we'll never know. _Will we?_ "

     The older ninja scoffed, but also let himself show a hint of a smile. "Let's just get to it so I can go save the Princess."


	3. Jolly Roger

>   
> _**Jolly Roger** (n) skull and crossbones argent on field sable; colors flown by a pirate vessel_   
> 

 

     The captain's mess on the 'Dragon of Heaven' was just as lively as always. Only the officers dined there, but the officers on-board this ship just so happened to be the council of pirate lords. Their conversation and manner were more colorful than their frock coats, and their frock coats clashed badly enough to wound and confuse the eye. It was probably a tactic. Each lord or lady commanded a fleet of some several ships, from what he'd gathered, sending directions via messenger pigeon -- except for Lady Nekoi, whom every storyteller knew better as "Black Cat" Yuzuriha. She sent her orders by way of a trained seal named "Puppy". Without a doubt, if anything good could come out of this, it would be the knowledge gained. Syaoran had learned that and a great deal else on this kidnapping, and he looked forward to reporting it if they ever...

      _When_ they managed to get out alive.

     Captain Arisugawa -- Sorata to his fellow shipmates but sometimes called in legends as "Sora the Hatless" for reasons that seemed to relate to a mild feather allergy -- had insisted that Princess Sakura join the council here every evening, despite the terse objections of the first mate. But then, "Death" Shirou ('Kamui' to his friends, which Kurogane would no doubt want to add to his file) objected to just about everything that didn't involve killing them both. After a great deal of 'persuasion' exercised upon the deck monkeys who took the council's orders, Syaoran had managed to explain that the Princess would not be dining anywhere without him. Unfortunately, most of the crew would recover from those injuries in no time, and only a few would bear scars from it. The pirates who sailed on the Pirate King's own flagship were one and all of a select caliber.

     Not the same caliber as the council lords, though. It had been Shirou who'd come out to 'reply to the message' he'd sent with the crewmen -- Shirou who'd given him a black eye and gotten a broken rib in return before the mess bell had rung and the navigator, the Lord Sumeragi Subaru, had come to fetch them both.

     " _The Sumeragi_ ", books called him, but not just books. Even his fellow council members called him that. Syaoran could see with a glance why the high-sea tales claimed that neither age nor darkness nor heaven nor hell would touch him, though he had no doubt that the rumors of his immortality were as exaggerated as the rumors that Mistress Yuuko was the consort of the god of chance. She didn't need any divine inspiration to make her pronouncements. It was experience, that was all -- and the Sumeragi clearly had that in buckets, for all that the man looked quiet and tame. Even if he hadn't been able to read that, he'd have guessed at it from the way the ship's first mate obeyed when the haunting man in white said, "Bring him."

     Seated now, as had become custom, at the far side of the table from the door, Syaoran watched the rest of them file in. The mistress at arms, Karen the Blaze, always entered hand in hand with the Oathkeeper. Turned out he had a proper name: Lord Aoki Seiichirou, which hadn't been in any of their records. Syaoran only wished that if the Princess was to be put through the trial and indignity of being held captive on the 'Dragon of Heaven' itself, he could _at least_ deliver up the identity of the Pirate King. They'd all heard more than ten conflicting rumors of how the Pirate King was chosen. Office passed down by blood, elected for life, elected annually, rotating amongst the lords, an open challenge that any who defeated him (or her) could take the title -- even that there was no Pirate King, and the council served as an oligarchy. At first glance, he would have gone with the assumption that the King was a myth, but after listening to them speak for the past several nights, he had no doubt that there was someone. More than that, it wasn't one of them -- not even the Sumeragi. There was someone else.

     "More wine, my lady? Milord?"

     Syaoran narrowed his eyes at the smiling cabin-hand. Too old to be called a cabin-boy, to be frank, though it was hard to imagine someone green enough to be measured a boy finding a place of service on this ship. "Thank you," he answered, and pushed the two goblets forward. He tasted the Princess's first to make sure nothing was in it that might harm her before passing it to her and taking his own. She was a hostage, it was true, and they'd been as well treated as anyone could expect at the hands of pirates, but he wouldn't take any foolish risks with her life. That was his Princess. His... Sakura.

     The sailor smiled that broad smile he had, closing up his eyes enough that it hard to tell they were blue, and tucked some golden hair behind his ear. "Of course. We'll have your food as soon as the Fata Morgana arrives. Not like her to be so late to table."

     Indeed it wasn't. The Pirate Council's tactical general was brutally prompt whenever her appearance was needed.

     "I'm sure Arashi has important business, Fai," Lord Aoki broke in as he pulled out a chair for the Lady Kasumi to sit.

     The lady set her hat beside her at the table with a laugh. "Please, my lord. I'll wager she's just avoiding the good captain's subtleties again."

     "Will you, now?" She extended her hand, and he took it with a smile. "Same terms as always?"

     "Of course."

     How a relationship managed to be so... wholesome and playful and sweet... between two commanders of pirate armadas (especially when the lady found the gunnery room too warm to wear anything but a hint of a shirt under her corset and didn't see the dining table as a reason to dress), Syaoran was at a loss to say. But facts were facts.

     "We have a problem."

     Everyone in the room turned to the figure in red at the door. As beautiful as she was, it was clear why men struck by her at sea would imagine they'd seen a mirage. But the Lady Kishuu Arashi was real, and she was deadly, and at the moment, she was holding a rope.

     "What's the matter, me lovely?" the captain asked as he stood.

     Her eyes glinted cold. Syaoran could see her hand twitching by the sword belted to her waist.

     Shirou just sighed, echoed by the rest of the council. "Could you not do that when she's serious, Sorata? She might kill all of us, not just you."

     "But she's always serious," the confused captain rejoined.

     "Yes, she is" said the first mate. "So shut your trap and listen."

     Satisfied that she had the room's attention again, the Lady Kishuu continued, "Word reached me from the fleet. The ninja have organized a retrieval, and they're cooperating with Princess Tomoyo. The team has already been dispatched."

     "Two days sooner than we thought they'd be ready," Yuzuriha murmured. "We'll need those two days for the supplies and the tide, but I should think we could stop a few ninja if we get uninvited guests. What's the tally?"

     "My sources couldn't determine what resources the Ninja Union assembled." And, while the general in command of tactics and planning seemed more than a bit upset by that, Syaoran would freely admit he was proud to see the pirates' attempt at gathering information on any ninja hit trouble. With proper reinforcements, he could clear this boat in an hour easily. "But while we're on the topic of uninvited guests, our men on the ground found _this_."

     She slung the rope hard and pulled a man bound at the wrists in through the door. He fell to his knees in front of the table, shirt near in shreds, a two-day beard on his chin, and wearing a faded frock coat that once might have been blue or green, but the eye couldn't say for certain any longer. Syaoran could sense the Princess at his side, nervous but holding her head up with less fear than even the sailors below deck. That was his Sakura. She'd never need to be afraid, as long as he had any breath in him. He pushed his chair slowly, quietly away from the table so he had a good enough view to see any sudden moves that might come at her from the back should problems arise.

     Then, behind the stubble and the dirt, behind the expression acting as a mask, Syaoran saw lines he recognized. Kurogane? It had to be. The man's eyes passed over Sakura and Syaoran as if he hadn't seen either Princess or bodyguard before in his life, but that only served to prove his identity further. Syaoran kept any hint of knowing the man off his own face as well, but he couldn't help being sure. If his master was here, the pirates had every reason to be concerned.

     "You know where you are?" Shirou demanded.

     The rumpled figure on the floor cracked a smile. His mentor's acting always had been better than his own. "My lords, how could I not? When my ship went down, I was bound to set myself to a new account, and there's no aim higher than here."

     "Aim too high, and you might fall too far," was the reply. "Name."

     "It's Breath-Wallace, sir, late o' the good ship Pink Ross."

     The Oathkeeper -- _Aoki_ , Syaoran reminded himself -- paged through a book he'd pulled from his jacket. "There's a man by that name listed on the register. Breath-Wallace, Burt Bellamy. Navigator."

     "I'm afraid we're not looking for navigators at the moment, Mr. Breath-Wallace," Kamui snarled, jerking his head at the Sumeragi as a reminder that the ship had one of the best known in the world. "And that's assuming you are who you say you are. We'll find somewhere to hold you for the night, and make a decision before we put out to sea as to whether or not you'll keep that impudent head of yours."

     The golden-haired cabin-hand circled the table with trays of food and laughed. "Well, if you don't mind a volunteer, there's room in my bunk for him. With a squeeze, to be sure, but he'll fit."

     "What?!" The first mate didn't seem amused. The captain, on the other hand, was giggling fit to burst.

     With a pleading little pout, the man named Fai added, "Well, we can't have him crowding our guests of honor in the brig, now, can we? I promise you, I won't take my eyes off of him."

     "I don't think it'll be a problem," Sorata managed through his laughter. "Now, what to do about the ninja assault -- that's a problem."

     With all the dishes down on the table, the council of pirates considered in heavy silence, only Sorata picking at his food. It was the cabin-hand, looking around at all their faces, who spoke. "Sounds dangerous," he offered into the silence.

     "Too dangerous," the captain replied, then pondered another moment in a silence where he seemed to be summoning his words from a safe locked deep inside himself. "All right. I'll signal the 'Dragon of Earth' and we'll transfer our guests. They'll be more secure there until the crisis is over."

      _The 'Dragon of Earth'?_

     She was supposed to be a myth. A ghost ship that people claimed had appeared out of nowhere and that disappeared without a trace when blockades went up to catch it. So few people had ever lived through her supposed attacks, and those who had done so had been too far from the water to see anything but the barest glimpse of a ship. They'd certainly never laid eyes on her crew.

     "Won't buy much time. Puppy can get to her faster," said Yuzuriha. "I'll send him, and we'll be able to ship off our guests before nightfall tomorrow."

     The scrape of a chair across the floorboards caught everyone's attention, as it came from the far corner of the table where the Sumeragi kept to himself. He took to his feet and offered the room a quiet, "Excuse me," before he turned for the door.

     The captain didn't seem offended so much as confused. "You're not even going to eat?"

     Without a word, the Sumeragi turned back to the table and stared Sorata coldly in the eye. He drew a short knife from his belt, fingering the hilt lightly as one might test the balance of a blade before throwing it. Sorata already looked like he regretted speaking too quickly, but the Sumeragi decided to spear a single bite of meat from his plate instead of attacking. He ate it in the same heavy silence, and no one tried to stop him from leaving a second time.

     It seemed not even the pirates were looking forward to seeing the 'Dragon of Earth' appear. And before tomorrow at sunset?

     As valuable as that information might be, Syaoran couldn't and wouldn't take those risks with the Princess's life. He'd find a way to communicate with Kurogane, and they'd escape this boat before that nightfall. With luck, before this night was much older.


	4. Shot Across the Bow

>   
> _**Shot Across the Bow** (n) a warning shot to another vessel, used as a convention before proper hostilities begin_   
> 

     Trouble wore a lot of guises, Kurogane had learned over the years, and today it was lithe, blond, and pretty, with clear blue eyes. He was in prison here, just as sure as Syaoran and the Princess were in the brig. The only difference was that he wasn't meant to notice. His warden seemed to hope that his natural gifts would distract Kurogane from that fact. The man would have to suffer some disappointment.

     He watched his watcher out of the corner of his eye as he shaved, using his reflection in the porthole that graced the tiny cabin. The odds were high that the entire little charade in the officers' mess had been put in place for the captives' benefit, to protect the one biggest secret of the entire Pirates' Guild, but they'd made a mistake when matters hadn't gone according to their plan.

     How many captains took their cues from a joking cabin-hand? Sora the Hatless might be light-hearted, but that was going too far. Not to mention the question of how many cabin-hands kept a room to themselves on a sailing ship like this. For all that it was narrow and gave them both no more than the minimum of space needed to move, it was a room for someone of rank. A crew cabin would never have a desk. Another berth, maybe, up to two or three if both spaces were bunked. And then there were certain unconscious clues the body could suppress but never fully erase. Once they were off this ship, he'd have to see if Syaoran had noticed the way each pirate lord had subtly straightened up and gone on guard when their supposed servant had walked by.

     Not that he could blame the boy for being preoccupied under the circumstances.

     But unless Kurogane's instincts had failed him, the Pirate King had decided to keep an eye on him personally. It might have been a whim, or perhaps another move in the same unknown gambit that had led to kidnapping the Princess in the first place, or -- Kurogane hated to admit -- his cover might have been made. All that remained was to determine which it was before he made a break for where the boy and Princess Sakura were caged.

     "Room for two with a squeeze, you say?" Kurogane finished his shave and stowed his knife while he examined the bed and the man sitting on it straight on. "Looks cramped to me. I'll be fine with the floor." Best to make it clear wouldn’t be seduced into a weaponless stupor so that a particularly dangerous enemy could lead him around by the cock-and-bull.

     "I think you'll regret that," the man answered with a pout. He turned in his seat and faced Kurogane, splitting his legs to hug the support pillar that mounted the berth to the floor and ceiling. The buttons on his cuffs were the first to come undone in what Kurogane was certain would be quite a show. "The waves can toss and turn quite powerfully at night. You won't find the walls to be nearly as accommodating as I am."

     Kurogane leaned up against one of those inconsiderate walls and took a good look at the offer he was getting. He'd done worse, that was for sure, but there was a fine line between enjoying oneself in the line of duty and getting played. He didn't want to cross it. "Are you this accommodating with all the shipwrecked sailors who wash up on your decks?"

     "Just the tall, dark, and mysterious ones," the fair man shot back. "When they keep staring at me like you do, anyway."

     Well, games had two players. He strolled up to the berth and leaned against the pillar while he traced the man's chin with his thumb. "Was I staring?" Kurogane asked. That coaxed a little smile out of him -- a coy, triumphant little smile, and a wicked sparkle in his eye.

     "Watching me like a hawk."

     "So you didn't just want to save that ninja you've got in the brig from overcrowding?" He dropped his hand to the man's collar and pulled loose the bow that held it shut. The blond had been hiding some fine collarbones underneath the light ruffles edging the laces. The tiny motions of breathing drew Kurogane's eyes all over the kissing hollows they made at the base of the man's slender throat. "And you won't clap me in irons the minute there's space down below?"

     Delicate fingers that he wouldn't have guessed had seen years at sea tested the muscles running up the back of his thigh. "Oh," the pirate sighed as he shifted further back on the bedding. "I'm sure if you ask nicely, something could be arranged. But for the moment, I just want to see what you're made of."

     What he was made of? The real question was what his sparring partner meant by that. If Watanuki's intel was trustworthy, a roll in the sheets wasn't out of the question for someone who wanted to test if he were really a pirate or was just a man in boots and a conspicuous coat, and he certainly couldn't hesitate if this were a test. Taking half a second to toe off his boots, Kurogane climbed onto the berth with his knee and shoved the pirate down roughly by the shoulder, pushing his tongue into his willing mouth for a kiss without pausing for formalities. The narrow bed was just as tight a fit as it had looked, but -- as promised -- there was room for two.

     ...As long as they fit like sword and sheath. The wooden joints that held the berth to the wall creaked under the weight of their bodies pushing together. The frame of the ship made the same complaints about the force of the waves, but this was no slow roll on a calm ocean. His warden had spirit, and a gift for navigating the tight space. He was pressed so close that Kurogane could feel the force of it through all his body at once, but he had all the access he could ask for. Their limbs twined and his hands could maneuver under cloth to find the body that was teasing him; and below him, a cunning lover was learning fast how to stir his blood by tracing his scars with his fingertips.

     It was rare for a pirate to have such a pleasant, silky touch to his skin. Usually the harsh winds whipping through the rigging and the sails left it dry, and the labor made it hard. But under Kurogane's hands and on his tongue, the only trace of salt was the faint savor where the ocean's spray had dried on his neck. A temptation that had probably brought more than one man to his knees if his companion was so sure it would work again, and potent in combination with the way he was moaning against Kurogane’s ear. Even he might lose his head in that if he weren’t careful. Kurogane broke for a moment to tear his shirt off his back -- and to clear his head -- and took a long, considering look at the man gazing up from the bedsheets. He couldn't take this lightly; the pirate was playing for higher stakes than Kurogane cared to lose.

     It was an odd thrill, thinking he _could_ lose. It sent a shiver to the base of his spine as he tugged on the lacings holding the blond’s pants closed. One just hard enough to untie the knot, one hard enough to rip the cord out completely -- drawing a rough gasp and a smile from the pirate. Every grin, every sparkle in his eye, was like a dare. One question hovered in the narrow space: which way would he go? It seemed like he knew every move his enemy could make and like his enemy was saying he knew the same. But whichever direction he took, he knew he’d go all the way, and the man offering his bed wouldn’t stop short, either. It was in every trembling moan when Kurogane slid his hands further along his rival’s skin. Whatever schemes the pirate was putting on, he wasn't faking that. He said he'd read desire in a ninja’s eyes, and maybe the pirate could, but however much he wouldn't deny a certain visceral thrill at the thought of riding deep in a lover like that, he could tell from the shine on the pirate's eyes -- Fai, someone had called him -- that when he opened himself, it was to satisfy more than curiosity.

     He moved fast. Almost too fast -- Kurogane could feel the push as Fai rolled on top before he realized they were shifting, and rolled with him by instinct. The lamplight caught on the smooth lines of his shameless smile. He'd looked lean in his clothes -- slight, with a strength only betrayed by his movement before, and now by the oil-lamp that traced the flat rise and dip of the sculpture of his chest. The golden key hanging from the long chain on his neck swung free and cast dancing lights all around their bodies and the small berth.

     Kurogane slipped a hand back inside Fai's pants as they dropped loose around his hips, and another traced the long lines of his chest, snatching that gleaming form back down to meet him.

     "Well, don't hold anything back on my account, lover," the pirate murmured through bites and kisses that kept the ninja wondering which kind of thrill the next instant was going to bring.

     He loosened his belt while the devil's tongue traced down from his neck, down his chest, down... a slow retreat with Kurogane's fingers tangled in his hair. It would have been easy to lose his head in the rush of his blood, but he always kept control. Sometimes, he wondered what it would be like to hold a man like that in his arms without needing to strive for anything but the moment -- but a man like that would always be too dangerous to take the risk. The most beautiful temptations were the predators, and he would not be made prey.

     The feel of the pirate unbuttoning his trousers with his teeth and nipping at the tender skin on his abdomen, a smooth cheek brushing against his hardening cock, made him shudder, but he wasn’t so far gone that he’d miss the next play. The sharp bite down by his hip was no tooth, he knew -- not deep, but made by cold metal. Even as Fai started to lap the well of blood from a skin-deep slice, Kurogane knocked the pirate's wrist against the wall hard enough to make him drop the knife he'd pulled unseen, but not to make the grin drop from his lips. If anything, he looked like he couldn't be happier. Damn him for a jade. "Let's leave the toys in the box for now," the ninja hissed. His pleasant companion was dangerous enough in bed unarmed.

     "Oh, don't you trust me?" the blond asked with a mock pout.

     "Not a chance in hell."

     The pirate stretched up to reach a low hanging rafter while he chastised Kurogane for the comment with a click of his tongue. From here, the ninja could see a gleam that might be a weapon resting on top of the beam -- one far more serious than a knife. At least the cut on his hip felt just like a simple cut. No burning from an acid poison, no symptoms to tell him he'd been drugged.

     "That's mean, you know," Fai told him, like a mockery of a school teacher, hovering debauched and disheveled above him. "After all, I trust you." The predatory smile bloomed on his face again as he added, "... _Ku-ro-ga-ne_."

     The clatter of wood and cutlass echoed loud through the cabin as he whipped the pirate down and they fell together to the floor. The man was stronger than he looked, and it wasn't easy to subdue him, but Kurogane took every advantage he had over the slender pirate in a grappling match. By the time they’d hit the floor and rolled into the wall, he'd managed to take the pirate and pin his wrists crossed behind his back. In a fraction of an instant, he'd tied them together with the sash at his belt and the blond had stopped struggling in favor of laughing, as if being taken prisoner didn't mean a thing.

     Kurogane wouldn't be surprised at all if he could escape from most bonds without trouble, and he wasn't taking more chances with the pirate than he had to. His belt came off next, looped around Fai's neck. The ninja held the buckle in his teeth and threaded the end through, pulling the length of the belt down his captive's back to where he could use the hanger for his dirk to sturdy his knots; but as he was securing it tight, listening to the pirate’s low, sensual laughter in response to the stiff collaring, the door flew open wide.

     "What's going on?! I heard --" Kurogane recognized the voice as the first mate, and turned his eyes to the door as high on alert as he'd ever been. Two pirates at that level could be too much. But Death Shirou wasn’t attacking. He was standing still now, longsword drawn and an eyebrow twitching, while he let out a pained sigh. "Oh, god."

     "We're fine here, thanks," Fai answered. You could hear him smiling brightly, just from the tone in his voice.

     The first mate shut his eyes tight before he sheathed his sword and answered, "Right. Leaving now." As the door closed, Kurogane could have sworn he heard the man mutter, " _Must you?_ "

     The ninja didn't waste another second in butterflying loops around his captive's elbows to lock his arms in, anchoring all the knots in his sash to the hanger on his belt. Fai didn't make any sign of struggling further. No doubt he trusted himself to escape when Kurogane wasn't looking, and trusted the situation and his sex appeal to keep him alive that long. "Talk," he ordered the pirate, pulling at the belt to let him know his bonds could get tight enough to hurt if they had to.

     "Oh, well..." The blond turned his head over his shoulder with an innocent blink. "Actually my nose itches a bit. Would you mind getting that for me?"

     He slammed the pirate's shoulder to the floor, face and neck pinned, instead of answering.

     "Thanks." There was a faint line of red on the pirate's cheekbone now, more an abrasion than a cut. "And if you want to know when I made you, it was when Arashi brought you out. I've seen you fight before, Kuro-tan, and you're really quite distinctive."

     "The hidden identities go both ways, though." He hauled the man back upright to whisper in his ear. "You didn't think you'd fool me?"

     The pirate rolled his eyes with a toss of his head. "Let's skip the part where I know you know, because I _know_ you know I know you know." He paused and repeated his words to himself to check what he’d said. "Yes, that’s right. Get on to the good parts, would you?"

     "So you are the Pirate King." He fisted his fingers in his captive’s hair to force his head around and stared down the gleam in his eye, focusing away from the tempting way he licked his lips.

     "And it is, it is a glorious thing to be a Pirate King." He gasped out loud as Kurogane pulled an arm roughly and made his back arch with the strain. The pirate laughed again, then, and added, "But you can call me Fai."

     "What do you want with the Princess Sakura?"

     "Time, that’s all. And I’ll answer all of your questions, Kuro-pii. You only have to ask nicely."

     "I doubt you’d answer them straight."

     Fai let out a long sigh and tilted back his head so that his pale neck was back in reach of Kurogane’s breath. "Oh, I have a firm policy of not doing _anything_ straight."

     With a growl, he switched questions. If he could get the Princess away, there would be time to find out what his plot was. What he needed to know now was what he was facing. "Tell me about the ‘Dragon of Earth’."

     "What’s to know?" The light strain against his bonds looked like he was trying to shrug. "She’s a ship."

     "Not just any ship. And I’d say the Sumeragi would agree, wouldn’t you?"

     The pirate shook his head with an over-dramatic sadness, not minding the tightening bonds on his arms pulling his wrists into a wrenched lock. "Poor Subaru," he sighed. "His reasons are personal, I’m afraid, nothing to do with the ship itself."

     "No games." He didn’t hold a knife to the pirate’s throat, since he had to assume Fai would know it was an empty threat. He wanted information, at the moment, not blood. He’d haul the man back home and take his time asking rather than kill him here. Instead, he forced him down to the floor and leaned on an arm, not quite enough to break it. "Answers."

     "Answers?" His captive laughed with half-manic glee. "Tell me, Kuro-rin... Do you believe in demons?"

     Well, he’d believe that if any men would be called demons, they’d be the crew of the ‘Dragon of Earth’, but the pirate wasn’t the one asking the questions. "Why don’t you tell me some more about that, _your majesty_?"

     "Hmm." After a moment, Fai shook his head as best as he could against the floor. "There are things that men weren’t meant to know, lover. It’s too late for me, but I think I’ll spare you." Every second made it clearer that each moment trying to make the pirate talk was a moment wasted, when he could have been getting his comrades and his prisoner off the ship. But another low chuckle rolled out of the pirate’s throat after he’d paused slightly too long. "Was that all you wanted to know, or have you decided that’s all you can get? Because I’ll tell you one thing for free." He pushed up with his legs and shoulders, riding against Kurogane as his trousers pooled around his knees revealed more of the smooth, pale thighs the pirate clearly trusted to tease his captor. "You can still have what you _really_ want. A little bit of bondage isn’t a deal-breaker for me."

     Kurogane studied the man’s slim hips and thighs, hearing the challenge in the Fai’s voice. The pirate thought he would balk, but he’d learn otherwise. A hint of surprise showed under the bliss in the man’s expression and in his moan when Kurogane teased his opening with a knuckle. "You mean this? Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you? But maybe I won’t give you the satisfaction."

     "Ooh, so you like it when people beg. Shall I say ‘please’? Pretty please, Kuro-sama. Put me in my place. Make me scream... if you can. I promise you’re not going to do it any other way."

     From a knuckle to two fingers, he pushed his way inside, forcing a loud cry out of the pirate’s throat when he hit the right spot. The sound rung in his blood. He was going to take that body -- the thought beat like a song in a low, heavy rhythm. Every groan from the fair-haired man doubled over underneath him promised that. This time, he’d call the pirate’s bluff. He’d make Fai come so hard he’d want to scream -- _need_ to scream.

     All night, he’d had nothing but games from the blond, and the moans when he stroked his captive’s erection didn’t sound any different from the ones that had tempted him in the narrow bed -- but the next time the man on the floor panted, "Please!" he wasn’t playing a game. There was no guile left in the sinuous arch of his back. He thrust down on Kurogane’s fingers, begging for more. Well, he would make sure Fai got all the more he wanted.

     He had already pressed the head of his cock into the pirate before the thought flickered through his mind that it might have been more polite to have found some kind of lubricant. Then his mind went blank, erased by the shudder of the blond’s body tightening and releasing around him. A moaned word sounded through the cabin that he couldn’t hear over the rush of his blood, but he knew exactly what it meant. He thrust further in; the creak of the floorboards under them raced to a higher tempo -- the only sound not drowned out by the touch of skin and leather or the harsh cries of ecstasy from a voice he was certain he wouldn’t forget.

     The ninja could feel the tremble as Fai’s legs gave out and pulled him up by the shoulders before they both tumbled to the floor. He sat back, the blond crashing against his chest with a gasp of pain from the wrenching of the bindings followed hard by a trailing moan. And he held the man there while he pushed himself all the way inside. There was no snap from the bone in his arms, not that Kurogane knew anymore if that would have stopped him. Not that he knew if the pirate would have wanted him to stop, or would have liked it all the better for that. He breathed in the scent of sweat, tasted the back of his neck one more time, listened to the way cries had made his throat raw from close enough to feel him panting. He had just enough reason left to think about bringing the man off and pulling out -- not leaving him with the thought that he had what it took to make the ninja come.

     He could have stopped, could have gotten himself down, he was sure of it. But something in the shudder of Fai coming over his hand and the sound of the scream he’d been after... Something in the blood-stained, panting mouth and the long, fiendish gleam in those blue eyes...

     He thrust deep into the man, shaking with a thrill he couldn’t contain. It was over in a flash of blinding fervor, but at the same time, it wasn’t over. He looked at the quivering, bound man falling out of his arms and rolling to the floor -- giggling softly like a madman, wearing only the ninja’s belts and a euphoric smile -- and Kurogane knew this was anything but over. Another day, another week, another year. They all flashed before his eyes in that slow moment after the rush. All the times this man would get away from him, tease him, and come back for more.

     At least, he’d try.

     Kurogane took to his feet, masking any shaking that was left in his limbs -- bound up his pants, went to look for his shirt. He left Fai on the floor, and the blue-eyed pirate was staring at him as if he, too, had seen that neither of them would get out of this so easily. "You know, if you leave me here, I won’t be waiting when you get back."

     Picking up the cutlass and stowing it back on the rafter, then tucking the dagger into his sleeve, Kurogane let out a heavy sigh. That wasn’t an empty threat. But he wasn’t going to fail in his mission because he’d gotten distracted by a comely blond. That had been the pirate’s plan from the beginning.

     He slung his jacket over his shoulder and stepped into his boots, tossing the sheathed dirk at the floor by the Pirate King. He didn’t have the belt for it anymore, and with his cover blown, he could summon Ginryuu should he need a blade. "Call it a head start," Kurogane said, then knelt to trace some of the sweat off of Fai’s arm. The stroke of his hand had been an impulse, nothing more, but he took his time to consider before he pulled the man up by the elbow and kissed him fair -- soft and gentle, and everything they hadn’t been since they’d walked into this room. He liked the confused suspicion in the pirate’s eyes when he pulled away.

     Just maybe, when next time this man came looking for him, the blond wouldn’t be holding all the cards.


	5. Batten Down the Hatches

> _**Batten Down the Hatches** (v) to stow and secure all gear and facilities on board in preparation for an oncoming storm (in modern usage, this storm may be figurative)_

     This late at night, if he wanted to borrow a bed that was free of a body or two -- his own quarters posing too much risk of ninja invasion -- there was only ever one to be had, and conveniently enough it belonged to the only person here Fai would impose upon for a few hours rest. Subaru was playing his violin, naturally. His old keepsake always came out when the 'Dragon of Earth' threatened near. Perhaps it was the nervous habit of an incurable brooder, but it was the best kind of nervous habit. Between the dreamlike after-rush of breaking through that _devastatingly_ sexy ninja's armor and the dance of the ringing notes, Fai felt like his feet were floating on six inches of air.

      _Oh, that ninja_ , Fai thought, biting his lip in a wicked grin. The game he'd wanted to play as soon as he'd seen those red eyes wasn't going to end with a quick toss, not for them. Kurogane was going to be _quite_ the handful. Yuuko had lost herself a prize letting him go to Princess Tomoyo, but no doubt she'd taken a proper return on the investment. Dear, sweet Yuuko always did... that witch. If nothing else, having him outside her ranks now meant Kuro-tan wasn't bound by her promises. He could come to this ship and be fully entertaining enough that it'd be worth losing the girl for the moment.

     But even Yuuko couldn't have been planning this assault for twelve years, putting her pieces in the right place for the right time. The mysterious Sakura had only washed up on Tomoyo's shore _nine_ years ago. But he could wait a little longer, now that he'd seen her for himself. Nearly a decade in the ungentlemanly company of ninja had clearly caused no habits that could become inconvenient in a descendant of Clow's... assuming she was who he thought she was.

     However this turned out, he'd have no regrets.

     Fai paused outside of Subaru's door and hummed along to the crying strings, tracing a few of the grainlines down the planks to the door handle. It wouldn't bother Subaru for him to push the door open in the middle of a phrase. Honestly, it was doubtful his friend would be much bothered if someone beat the door down with a battering ram, but he liked this song. Despite the fact that it had so many memories, it was such a pretty tune in its own perverse way. He remembered when Hokuto had written it, back when Subaru's playing had been sweet and cheery, and they all used to laugh at the lyrics (especially Seishirou). Even now, the ephemeral melody bleeding through the bulkheads made the ship feel alive, seeming to shiver out of the very joints of the beams as if his Dragon sang with a voice of her own.

     In right fact, the crew believed she did, and _he_ certainly didn't plan to correct them. It was just like he'd told Kuro-rin: there were things men were better of not knowing. When they heard the song, even though none of them could have known the words, they knew well to beware the coming of the Barrows-guard, and that was good enough. Why they didn't choose to live in fear of Lord Monou or Satsuki instead left Fai constantly in wonder. Most officers on the 'Dragon of Earth' were capable of fighting a war on five fronts with their own two hands, and infinitely more likely than Seishirou to take an interest in a common sailor. Still, when most of the crew had decided he'd cage their souls if they but looked at him -- or drink their blood or tear their hearts from their chests or any number of half-truths -- he couldn't exactly _argue_. Their bogeyman might be more discerning than they gave him credit for, but his reputation had been earned.

     Fai waited for the resolve on the phrase and the pause he knew was coming in Subaru's melody to push open the door. His old friend sat in the same small chair, facing the same tiny window as always, dressed down to his shirtsleeves and waistcoat as he made his bow dance over the strings. Still humming, Fai hung his coat on a stand next to the hat he'd left here last time he'd needed a nap, and he toed off his boots. Nothing quite like rolling on top of clean, soap-scented sheets and stretching out his toes. He'd meant to go straight to sleep, but fatigue just couldn't win against the excitement thrumming in his blood and the crisp strains of melody. By the time the final strains of the coda faded out and Subaru dropped the violin to his knee, he was more than ready to go take on his ninja for round two.

     But there was timing to worry about. And the raw skin on his arms and face that stung on the salt that infused everything at sea, of course, but timing was more important. Kuro-chan had to stew for a bit and think about what he'd done. When he was good and ready, Fai was certain, he wouldn't have to go looking for a chance to bring his dark, handsome stranger to his knees. He'd come begging.

     He couldn't help laughing when his friend turned to stare him down. Not enough men feared Subaru's eyes, Fai often thought, for they always looked quite mild. Those eyes were greener than the sea when the sun was high and twice as deep, but there was too much sunk in them for a glare to take hold. Sensible people feared them all the more for that, but who had time for sense nowadays?

     "I'd ask who's keeping watch on our guest, but I take it you've decided not to keep him." His friend walked over to the desk to lay his violin in its case, taking his gloves from his belt. The pentagrams on his hands were scars that he went to great trouble to keep secret, and the rest of the council would find their way here before too long now that the song that kept most people far at bay had stopped.

     Well, Subaru couldn't hold that one against him. When had he ever said, 'Stop playing'? It was the Sumeragi who was clearly inviting the company. "Oh, I'll be keeping him," Fai answered, and tried with little success to shake the grin off his face. "But a man like that..."

     He could just taste the thought of taking Kurogane for another spin. And then, what the ninja had meant by that kiss... It had been rather a number of years since anyone had tried to play that card with him. It could be fun, letting someone try to romance him. Maybe letting him think he was succeeding. Besides, any game his opponent was playing meant that he'd been challenged. That was hardly a problem.

     Putting an extra sparkle in his eye, he faced the mildly disapproving expression his old friend had seen fit to wear. "Mm. Well, a man like Kuro-tan deserves to be taken down with his pants on," Fai finished. "And I really think you'd like him. He's sweet."

     The discontent in Subaru's eyes stayed strong as the Sumeragi paused before donning his gloves to push Fai's chin lightly from one profile to the other. "I'll grant that he's not like most of your dance partners. They generally leave your face alone."

     Well, that was true. The sore joints, the pleasantly painful stretch in his muscles, and the bruises were nothing out of the ordinary, but the mild sear across his cheek whenever he moved his mouth or batted an eye had him smiling extra just to feel it. The curious warmth of the swollen, broken skin and the twinge as it moved... Even if it hurt, he couldn't leave the sensation alone. And every jolt through his nerves brought back the memory of how the ninja had tried to pretend the fun was over when the buckles and braces had come out.

     Not that a scratch disproved the fact that Kurogane was sweet, though perhaps the confusion was understandable. Subaru hadn't seen the look in the ninja's eyes all night, trying to decide how far he could let himself go, trying to believe he'd be able to refuse his own curiosity. A delirious chuckle fell out of Fai's throat as he knit his hands into the pillow under his head. How long would it be before his Kuro-pin realized that he'd blown past the point of no return without even hearing the waysigns whooshing in the breeze?

     As a particular expression came over his friend that he hadn't seen in a lifetime -- at least -- Fai's amusement faded away. In silence, the Sumeragi's gaze sparked with concern, then looked deep down towards him. Too deep. "Stay out of my soul, Subaru." Fai brushed the hand off his chin and turned towards the wall to study a corner as far from those green eyes as he could find. "You know you won't like it there."

     But the quiet hung heavy. Of course Subaru wouldn't argue with him, and he'd never insist. Oh, the difficulties of people who knew you too well, and who wouldn't be dissuaded by a smile. His friend wouldn't have needed to see any more than the fancy Fai had been letting show on his face. That was the price he paid not to be alone.

     When he turned back, Subaru looked as reproving as his sad, somber self could ever manage. "You said I can't help who I love, and I'll give you that same courtesy. But _you_ could decide to walk away."

     Fai laughed off the warning from the _last_ person who should have been lecturing. Who'd said anything about taking the ninja seriously enough that he had to walk away? He could be as bad as he wanted as long as he wasn't stupid about getting his heart involved. He'd learned his lesson with Ashura, after all. Of course he had. Hadn't he'd sealed his demon lord away for as much of eternity as he could manage? The way Subaru would never be able to do with his own not-quite ex but never-really lover. No, he couldn't help it if he was fond of a certain person who'd earned his attention -- for now -- but _what attention he paid_ was something he could control. And, as he twirled the key on his neck that would never let him forget it, he asked, "Walk away? Over a few scratches? That's nothing between enemies."

     "Depends on the scratches."

     Fai tried not to let his eyes drift toward the patterned scars on his navigator's hands. Subaru was surely trying not to clench his fingers into fists as well, but neither of them seemed to have any luck. Sure as hell, the white ridges had stained to a blush already. By the time the 'Dragon of Earth' arrived, they'd be red as blood, and he'd need those gloves more than ever. Being fond of a man wouldn't make him any less terrible if he were a terrible man; they both knew that. But in the case of the man who'd braved his Dragon alone for the sake of those two children, then left him bleeding and bound but so very alive on the floor, it just wasn't true.

     "Kurogane is nothing like Seishirou," Fai answered, staring straight into Subaru's mild eyes. That was all he could offer, though he knew full well that Subaru would find it exactly the opposite of reassuring. Not one of them had thought Seishirou was 'like Seishirou' back then, with the possible exception of Hokuto, and the chance that she'd known hadn't done her any favors when he'd sent her back across the mists for good. Some days, Fai wondered if Subaru could still hear his twin sister's voice so far away, but he'd never asked. If his friend couldn't hear her after all, then she was as good as dead.

     With a twisted frown, the Sumeragi finished pulling on his gloves and paced back to his desk in silence, not speaking another word until he returned with a small, round container. "This will help take down the swelling. It should prevent any of that from scarring, as well. None of it looks deep."

     "Why, thank you." As soon as he pulled off the lid, the cream set the entire cabin awash with the scent of mint. It cooled quickly on his skin where it was whole and stung where it was raw, fading soon to a numb tingle. Skin healed quickly. Fai wasn't worried about that, but he was glad to have the little gesture of peace. "Wherever would I be without my pretty face?"

     "Long since dead, and probably better off," Subaru replied without a pause.

     "Touche." When the Sumeragi did talk, he certainly didn't mince words. "For what it's worth, Subaru..." He finished rubbing the salve into the abrasions on his arms and settled the lid back on the pot. They had another minute before the rest of the pirate lords arrived, Fai judged, but only just; and if everything didn't go just right for the rest of the evening, the decision to call the 'Dragon of Earth' would be in vain. "I wish I could keep him away from you."

      _For what it was worth..._ Fai thought again, his bitter smile turning to a bemused laugh as Subaru's expression melted into a hint of confusion. "I never asked you to," his friend answered.

     And he never would want to, which was why Fai never started that conversation until someone else was about to walk into the room. He was still staring down the unreadable stillness of the Sumeragi's eyes when the door opened, putting the question off indefinitely.

     "If you're here," Kamui started before he was even through the door, "please tell me our guest is verifiably unconscious and tied securely to your bedpost."

     Fai stretched out on the bed and smiled up at the gathered council lords crowding through the door. Unlike the First Mate, he waited for all of his audience to assemble within earshot before starting his performance. As soon as Yuzuriha rushed in after everyone else and had a chance to gasp at his state of physical disrepair, he shrugged and nestled into the pillow with a particularly bright smile. "Ah, _nope_. He's..." Fai trailed off and shut his eyes as he swirled his finger around in the air to indicate the general environs of the ship. "... somewhere out there."

     Kamui had absolutely the _best_ vexed expressions. There was no question that he'd mellowed through the years of exposure to the rest of the council -- especially Sorata -- given that he'd been such a melodramatic and humorless little shit once upon a time, but he could still paint, 'The universe exists only to cause me pain!' on his face like nobody's business. At the moment, his eyes were screwed shut, and Kamui was pressing a hand to his forehead with a _charming_ level of chagrin. "I wish I were capable of believing you're joking about that."

     "But we know where he'll be going!" Fai reminded the room. He rolled up on his side and curled up his legs after a playful kick at the council's second-in-command. "Ninja infiltration equals rescue mission. I'd imagine he's seeking out the brig, wherever he is at the moment. And I learned a great deal about what he doesn't know while he was interrogating me. _Truly_ fascinating."

     "Ninja? Interro-- You mean--" Most of his pirates now looked confused -- probably wondering why the man he'd taken off wasn't tied to his bedpost after all, if he were a ninja -- but Karen was having trouble containing giggles as Kamui's face shifted through eight shades of red and his eyebrows turned downright apoplectic. "Have you ever _once_ considered having normal sex?!" the first mate thundered. "Maybe the kind that I could _differentiate from torture_?"

     Fai had to join Karen in giggling at that. Of course he'd considered it -- he'd even tried it once -- but it had been _awfully_ boring.

     With a pained sigh, Kamui took the laughter for what it was: _rejection_. Once he'd had a chance to breathe, the color in his cheeks returned to normal. "Okay, fine. You let the ninja have his way with you, did reverse information collection, then let him think he'd gotten away so he'd lower his guard."

     "Just tell yourself that," Arashi muttered under her breath.

     Ignoring her, Kamui asked with a forced calm, "Did you get his name?"

     Just the question he'd been waiting for. None of them but Subaru had been able to tell, or they would have insisted on trying to keelhaul the man while Arashi had still had him 'restrained' -- before Fai had a chance to find out if the ninja lived up to his reputation. He'd been looking forward to breaking the news all night, not that his knowing little smile did anything but set Kamui more on edge.

     The nervousness mounting in his eyes as Fai's grin brightened at him made his voice even sharper and more ill-humored than usual. "Did you get a solid grasp of his abilities? Maybe plans for the general assault to retrieve the Princess? _Anything?_ "

     "Why, he _is_ the assault to retrieve the Princess, Kamui," Fai answered. This time, he was the only one giggling. "Why would anyone in the Ninja Union think they needed to send more manpower than Kurogane?" At the sound of the name, six pirate faces fell paler than Subaru's shirt, and the only thing to be heard throughout the chamber was the occasional swish of his hanging coat against the wall when the ship swayed on the waves. "Quite an honor, isn't it?" he went on, every second that he watched them panic feeling his smile grow. "An honest-to-goodness legend, coming out of retirement _just for us_."

     "So you're saying you didn't _let_ him get away," Sorata muttered, sweeping the bandana off his head so he could start pulling out his hair properly.

     Fai didn't bother to correct him.

     "Did you _know_ about this?" Kamui didn't wait for the response before he charged towards the door, pulling his cutlass from his belt -- making Fai grab his arm on his way past. The tempestuous little first mate struggled for a second, but a hard squeeze sent the message that he wasn't going anywhere. "Would you fucking _tell me_ when we've got Kurogane on our ship instead of fucking _fucking him_?!"

     Well, that was a silly question.

     Fai relaxed back on the pillows, keeping his grip on Kamui's forearm despite the other pirate's threatening fist, and shook his head lightly. "Not you. I'd like him taken alive, and without any unnecessary structural damage, if you don't mind. Besides, didn't the boy crack your rib?"

     Purple eyes that were very good at glaring indeed only locked on him until a violin case clicked shut across the cabin. Even Kamui didn't have to be reminded that, with Fai sitting out this round, the Sumeragi was the only one who could subdue that lord among ninja without wrecking the entire ship. And wouldn't you know? Subaru was already throwing on his coat. Poor Subaru. He tried admirably to look annoyed as he cocked his hat on his head and stalked toward the door, violin in hand, but he'd never been good at 'annoyed' even back when he'd had moods other than 'somber'.

     At least he'd have a chance to get back to brooding for a bit, rather than dealing with all these _pirates_ in his room.


	6. Athwartships

> _**Athwartships** (adv) a way to cross the ship deck, perpendicular to the midline of the boat; moving starboard to port, or vice versa_

  


     If he never got a prescient insight again, it would be too damn soon.

     Princess Tomoyo had never complained about being able to see the future, but she'd told him once that the gift wouldn't suit him -- and now he understood why. The instant's glimpse that had flashed in his mind after his tangle with the blond -- scattered moments without context or reason -- was nothing but a confusion and a distraction. He worked his way silently down the hatchways, wearing shadows as a cloak and shield and still unable to get away from _him_. Every time the timbers creaked, he heard a sigh he knew better than he should have. The wind whipped through the rigging, and he was sure the whistle sounded like Fai's -- though he'd damn well never heard _that_.

     Keeping his mind on his job actually took some effort when the entire ship sounded like a lover he didn't properly have yet and couldn't fathom being worth the trouble. What had his future self been thinking? From their brief acquaintance, he could already tell that Fai was ten lifetimes worth of havoc waiting to happen, minus the patience to wait. Even if the pirate was...

     Well, perhaps there were persuasive reasons why he might want to hold on to a man like that. He'd be worth another roll in the sheets if the right circumstances arose, but Kurogane certainly didn't understand his future self going sweet on him. There were a few things you could call a man who'd clearly decided not to inform his council about a dangerous enemy (namely himself) until after he'd had his fun, and 'trustworthy' didn't top his list. But visions were visions. Maybe he didn't know what he'd seen. The bare fact was, between the roll of the 'Dragon of Heaven' sending unbidden shivers up his spine and the fact that he'd had to take to the decks in stocking feet in order to keep his steps silent, he was gaining some respect for Watanuki's position on pirates.

     Those boots _were_ moronic, and the fact that the blond was one hell of a lay and would continue to be so only made his outrageous disposition that much more insufferable -- not that he'd seen enough to get a clear picture of how it would go. He just knew.

     But that was a problem for Future Kurogane. At present, his task was to get to the brig unnoticed and free the prisoners with as little ado as possible.

     He had to assume the Pirate King had escaped his bonds already. Kurogane hadn't heard the least trace of a sound from the _actual_ him, as opposed to the imagined fragments of memory -- no struggle, no doors, no walking. Any ninja worth calling a ninja could hear a raindrop run down a leaf from ten miles away if he tried, and from Fai he heard _nothing_. Maybe he had some pirate skill to silence his motions that Kurogane had never heard of before; he was the Pirate _King_. Yuuko could do loads of things that seemed like magic.

     It was slower going than normal, even without the boots, as all the deck hands tended to be silent or at most hushed in prayer. Nothing to camouflage his footsteps or the rustle of his pirate costume. Once the curious music had stopped echoing out of the beams, the terrified quiet had grown thicker than a desert. He'd heard one pirate ask another if it meant the 'Dragon of Earth' wasn't coming after all, but his fellows hadn't seen fit to speculate. At least it made his task of finding the brig that much simpler. Syaoran and the Princess Sakura kept to whispers, but whispers were clear as bladesong to him. He had only to melt into the darkness of the copious numbers of shadows within the ship, and their voices could lead him slowly through the maze of ladders and decks.

     "Syaoran..." the girl murmured softly. He wasn't far away now. They were just one deck below.

     "Don't worry, Princess," his protege assured her. His voice was perfectly calm, just as he'd been trained to sound, but Kurogane could hear him tightening his grip on her shoulders in that awful quiet. He must have been nervous, if he were taking liberties like that. "Before you know it, we'll be home."

     At the end of one shadow, a steep staircase turned with its landing bathed in lantern light. Kurogane checked back to look for pirate crew where he'd been, then leaned to check down the second stair. One deckhand there, polishing a store of muskets and checking their condition one at a time. As long as he was standing in the shadow, he could vanish from the world completely -- thin and clear as the absence of light against the wall -- but the man would see the movement if he stepped across a space as bright as that.

     Same with a flicker step. Too risky if he didn't want to put the pirate on guard. And even if he could trust that his identity weren't common knowledge to the crew by now, there would be too many questions if he were to manifest and try walking through in plain sight.

     Like, 'Where are your boots?' Or 'Didn't I see you getting taken prisoner on the beach earlier?'

     Sometimes, the best technique really was not to use a technique, and to wait until your potential witness was gone -- or to make him look the other way.

     "You aren't feeling seasick at all?" Syaoran asked, and Kurogane dropped a single tiny stone from the hidden pocket at his elbow into his hand.

     Princess Sakura sounded like she was forcing a smile. "I'm fine, I promise. The waves are all light, _really_." Waiting for just the right pitch from those waves, Kurogane flicked the stone he'd palmed at the pirate's pile of guns. The weapons went rolling across the floor as if the ocean had thrown them, clattering and distracting the man more than enough for him to dart across the landing into the next shadow. Loud enough, as well, to startle the Princess into a gasp.

     "Are you all right?!"

     "Like rocking a baby's cradle," she laughed. "I'm all right."

     "I'll remember you said that when I tell Princess Tomoyo how brave you've been." The boy sounded so serious about his intention that Kurogane had more trouble than he would have liked as he tried to keep from laughing.

     He didn't have to see either of their faces to know that Syaoran would be gazing at her, full to his ears with earnestness, and Princess Sakura would be glowing at him brighter than any lantern the pirates might have in the room. He sometimes thought to remind his protege it was dangerous to fall in love with your charge, and other times would rather have told him he was an idiot for not realizing she loved him, too; but Princess Tomoyo had instructed him not to interfere. Never a good idea to cross the wishes of a Dreamseer. Besides, they were too painfully cute to set straight. Ever since that girl had washed up on their shore -- no memory at all, only a locket engraved with a feather and the words, "To Sakura" -- the boy hadn't been able to take his eyes off of her. And if fancying her hadn't made him lose his head while trapped on the Pirate King's flagship, Kurogane was certain he could allow it. A ninja rarely got the luxury.

     For an instant, Fai's light, golden laugh rung softly in his memory. The pirate had a charm to him. Kurogane had to give himself that. Future Kurogane's choice of social entanglements might run a bit to the dangerous and deceitful, but with a substance to him that the ninja had to admit might prove habit-forming. That was one sound he needed no flashing visions to know in his bones, nor a similar sound from the ship to recall it. It was fair enough. Besides, an affair without a little danger--

      _Oh, I am not talking myself into that. Not him. Not here. Not now._

     "I'm not being brave," Sakura whispered. Still with an eye to the man with the muskets as he snuck down the staircase, Kurogane listened more closely to what was in the present. He was near enough to start guessing about how they might be held and how he'd have to prepare. From the sound of their heartbeats and their breaths, they were probably nestled close in the dark. It wasn't difficult to imagine. Chains on an ankle each, but with a loose rattle that told him Syaoran had already picked the locks. Hard to believe he'd suddenly gotten that good at working bonds while under guard, but Kurogane wasn't going to complain. They'd be ready to go once he got there. "Without you..." the girl went on. He bit back a smile at the scene. "I'm so glad you're here with me, Syaoran."

     Best to hurry. They were going to make his teeth rot if he didn't get there soon.

     "Princess..."

     "Please. Call me Sakura."

     At that, he could have sworn that he could hear Syaoran blushing. But then again, Kurogane knew the shade of incandescent red the boy turned whenever his charge tried to make him less formal than his nature. What was more odd, he thought he didn't hear a guard sitting inside the room. That couldn't be right.

     "I... I can't do that, Princess!"

     "Not even if I ask you to?"

     "Don't they ever stop?" a third voice muttered, and the speaker knocked his head against what was clearly the _outside_ the brig door. No wonder Syaoran already had the locks on their chains sprung, if they'd been working on out-sweeting the pirates' tolerance for watching them. Knowing those two, it probably hadn't been hard. The young ninja never would have come up with a plan like _that_ , of course. Must have been the Princess's idea.

     But before he had a chance to think of a good line to tease them with when he got there, _something_ moved on the ship. He turned all his senses away from the children in the brig to focus on what he had to think was a threat. A force was stirring on the impossibly quiet officers' quarters, deep in the heart of whatever spell Fai was using to keep him from hearing clearly. Within moments, ringing footsteps echoed on the deck, announcing the stride of someone who wasn't frightened into silence by the coming of the second Dragon. _One of the pirate lords. The step's all wrong for it to be the King himself._

     No sound of a heel like he'd seen on Karen the Blaze or the Fata Morgana, stride was too long for Black Cat Yuzuriha or Death Shirou, too austere in its rhythm to be Sora the Hatless, and the sound just a bit too light for the frame it carried to be the Oathkeeper...

     Kurogane cursed silently in his head as, sure enough, the white coat of the Sumeragi billowed into view. Nothing could have been more clear in the mess hall than how high the other lords placed him in their ranks, but of all of them he was the one pirate Kurogane hadn't felt able to read himself. Strength, he could take. An opponent he couldn't read wasn't one he'd choose to fight. Somehow, he wasn't surprised to see that was the one he'd gotten. His charming Pirate King, best he could tell, had a cat's own skill at sensing what would be most inconvenient and doing it.

     Pressed back against the wall, breathing as little as readiness would allow, he watched the pirate sweep down the corridor. No time for sneaking slowly, now, but also less need. Once the man walked by, Kurogane could stick in the moving shadow. No one would hear his footsteps as anything but an echo of the pirate's boots, and any rustle of his clothing would fade into the way that shining white greatcoat whipped like a flag through the air. Unlike Yuuko's cook, he didn't plan to complain about the odd fashion choices of the seas' top-ranked brigands. The Sumeragi would lead him straight to the brig, and cover his passage while he was at it.

     No answer to how he'd take the pirate down, but one thing at a time.

     Then, just as that thought had crossed his mind, Lord Sumeragi's eyes turned on him as he walked, as if he could see Kurogane hidden in the shadows. If he could, he'd be the first person to do it in going on twenty years, but his gaze cut out of the darkness to look the ninja straight on all the same. Or perhaps not? There was no sharpness of focus to the way the man looked towards him. Could be the pirate was simply looking ahead, not seeing him. But their eyes stayed locked just a little too long for Kurogane to believe anything but that he'd been spotted. Long enough and close enough as the Sumeragi stepped into the light for the profound green of them to burn into his memory. Never breaking that stare, the pirate lord rounded his way to the landing and took the steps down to the deck with the brig.

     Made it a bit strange that the Sumeragi did as Kurogane would have expected of someone hadn't seen his hiding spot, and walked past without even a pause. If he weren't so confused by the act, he might have had reason to feel insulted.

     But there wasn't time for either. He paced the pirate's shadow, definitely unseen by the musket cleaner who'd dropped to a knee at the Sumeragi's approach. As soon as the lord neared a corner, the man left his cleaning in what mess it was and dashed toward the night like his pants were on fire. Meanwhile, down the short hall, the pirate standing by a door whose face was slowly changing from nauseated to mortified could only have been the Princess's guard.

     He pulled his plain, little hat off his head and held it to his chest as he stood to attention before the ship's navigator. "My lord. What brings you--"

     "Weren't you meant to be watching our guests?" the Sumeragi asked in a tone just to the gentle side of unmovable.

     "Ah, well..." The half-light couldn't hide the way his face was burning red. "You see, sir--"

     "You've been relieved, Saiki." The pirate lord blew through the door without another glance. "Dismissed."

     The young pirate backed away from the brig, placing his hat back on his matted, dirty blond hair, and bowed a slight reverence from the waist. "Yes, sir. Thank you, my lord. I'll... just..." He trailed off while he stepped down the hall, turning as soon as he was out of sight. This one didn't run like his crewmate, but neither did he dawdle while he walked.

     The door left open like an invitation was too convenient to trust. Kurogane edged around until he could get a proper view. In one corner, behind locked bars, the Princess and Syaoran had fallen silent when the lord entered and both were on their guard. The lantern swaying ever so slightly with the roll of the ship on the waves left them with no shadows into which the boy could have vanished. The pirates here had clearly held a ninja or two in their time.

     Across the room, the Sumeragi dragged a lonely chair over to the furthest corner from the light, until his face and hands were shrouded in the dark. That coat picked up every stray shine, as it seemed almost to glow, but Kurogane had to imagine the empty green stare while he watched. Just barely, he could discern the man taking off a pair of gloves, sticking them in his belt and pulling something from the case he'd been carrying.

     It shouldn't have been that hard for him to see into the darkness. Apparently, ninja weren't the only ones who knew how to manipulate the shadows. Syaoran was watching the sight with just as much confusion as Kurogane had while the pirate sat and tucked what any fool could see was a violin under his chin.

     The melody coming from it only confirmed what they thought they saw.

     "A ... violin?" the Princess asked in a whisper, and turned to Syaoran hoping he could provide an explanation. "Wouldn't the sea air throw a violin out of tune?"

     Well, that wasn't quite the confusion he'd personally been having over the Sumeragi sitting down to play when he'd clearly been sent to fight, but Kurogane had to admit it seemed a valid one.

     "Well..." Syaoran looked back and forth between the man in the shadows and the expectant face of his charge. "He _is_ a pirate. Pirates can do a lot of things at sea... that... an ordinary man-- Princess Sakura?"

     The girl had turned from him to face the Sumeragi, shock written all over her face as she'd apparently forgotten her concern over the effects of humidity on catgut. "I know this song. I thought it sounded familiar before--"

     "Where have you been listening to _pirate chanties_?"

     Her bodyguard's indignation didn't seem to penetrate. She put a hand to her mouth, thinking hard to herself. Now that she mentioned it, Kurogane could hear how the strains coming from the violin were the same as the sound that had echoed through the ship before, sending every hand on deck into cold sweats from fear. Still looking like she did whenever she tried to pull something out of the fog of her old memories, she started to sing. " _The guardian of the barrows sets his course tonight for you..._ "

     At her words, Syaoran fell quiet, and Kurogane was sure he'd never seen the boy that frightened in his life. Hell, it was just a song, but the myths he’d heard about the ghost-assassin who came from the night itself to choose his prey and lead their souls to torment had made him glad more than once that he didn’t believe in old campfire tales. Even Lord Sumeragi sat up straighter in his darkened corner when he heard the Princess sing, and he was the one playing the damn thing.

     " _No shield is there can guard against his aim, so swift and true..._ " What a thing to surface as the first solid memory she'd been able to pull out of her past. But she kept on in a trance, as if she couldn't hear what she herself was singing. " _When calmest is the midnight and you are most alone, death he brings on silent wings -- his earth your final home... He has come for me from the stars, burning bright--_ "

     "Play something else!" Syaoran thundered, taking Sakura's hand with a sharp squeeze to shake her out her trance. When her singing cut off, the sound of the violin trailed off mid-phrase. The boy stood, still gripping her hand, and Kurogane decided to let him slide on having shown his bonds were unlocked as he did. He might have been trying to look impressive, not just letting his anger get the better of him. "I don't know if that's a threat or a sick joke, but the Barrows-guard won't come for my lady. Not while I'm here."

     The shadows seemed to fall away from the Sumeragi's face as he sat forward, and the boy did well not to quail. He'd seen the rest of the council of lords look as if they were two inches from trying to melt into the deck under that same stare. "Unfortunately, you're wrong about that." Placid as could be, he stared quietly at his violin and bow for a moment, then placed them back in the case as if he’d found the request reasonable but had no interest in playing any song but that one, and he turned back towards Kurogane. "You may as well show yourself, unless you have a reason to draw this out."

     Well, he'd _had_ a reason. Namely, trying to think of a way to distract the pirate well enough to take him by surprise and end their confrontation quickly, but that seemed right out. Kurogane stepped away from the wall, melting back into sight as he left the darkness, and summoned Ginryuu to his hand with a flash. Meanwhile, the Sumeragi stood up and sighed, pulling his gloves back on. He could see well enough into the darkness to catch a glimpse of red stars etched on the backs of his hands, but only just.

     There was probably a story there, but not one to ask after idly while preparing for a battle.

     With no more explanation than he'd given for anything this evening, the pirate ignored Kurogane's approach and walked to the wall to grab the keys hanging by a large, steel ring. Something about the heavy atmosphere told the ninja not to strike just yet.

     "I hope you don't mind if we go on deck. Fighting in an enclosed space won't end well for any of us." The Sumeragi fitted a key to the barred door, and Syaoran backed Princess Sakura up to the far wall as he summoned his own sword from the air.

     "Stay out of this one, kid," Kurogane cautioned him.

     The boy dropped the point of his sword as he was bade, but he didn't move from between the pirate and the Princess. "If you plan to kill us anyway, why spare us this long? Why bother calling the 'Dragon of Earth'?"

     "Kill you?" After he'd hung the key back on the wall, the Sumeragi picked up his violin case and glanced back at the cell. "No one plans to kill you."

     Despite the way the pirate had called on Hell's most infamous reaper not a minute before, saying he'd be coming for the Princess, Kurogane had to believe him. The man in white had the air of someone who was neither a murderer nor a liar. And there was the way the Pirate King had reacted when Kurogane had asked what he wanted with the Princess. Now, the blond was a liar, as certainly as the horizon stayed at the edge of sight's reach, but if he'd meant harm he'd have lied differently than he had. The ninja was sure of that.

     Syaoran had less cause to take the pirate's word. "But... you said the Barrows-guard would..." The boy gulped, swallowing the rest of the sentence as if he couldn't bear to hear it aloud.

     Not that anyone could blame him.

     The Sumeragi strode up to him, seeming to tower over the boy who was quickly losing all the color in his face. "Yes, I said he was coming, and he does come -- for you both. He's the only one who can pilot the 'Dragon of Earth', I’m afraid. She doesn't always sail by the stars in your sky."

     Well, that explained why Fai might have started talking about demons when he'd asked about the ship. In the bright lamplight, Syaoran had gone from pale to green. Princess Sakura's tight grip on his hand didn't seem to bring him any reassurance at the moment. "I thought you were being metaphorical."

     Laying a hand on the boy’s shoulder, the Sumeragi started them both walking out the door. "Believe me," he answered, with another weary sigh, "He's quite real."

     And wouldn’t you know, he’d apparently sided with the pirates. Just another reason to be glad he was a ninja. Kurogane filtered through everything he’d ever heard around a campfire, which couldn’t all be true even if the creature were real. At worst, if they stayed too long or this fight went badly, he'd be facing down a psychopathic psychopomp -- in addition to tonight’s impromptu duel in his stocking feet with the Sumeragi himself and getting a memo from his future self that he'd someday be falling for a pirate who'd make Watanuki's affair with Captain Doumeki look downright respectable.

      _No fire-spewing, disembodied jawbones the size of a rhinoceros, or mile-long sea monsters, nor even a single ravening zombie horde?_ Kurogane thought, kicking the wooden bulkhead to keep his good luck from running away. Not to mention that the Princess and Syaoran were alive and whole?

     He’d definitely had worse days.


	7. Futtock Shrouds

> _**Futtock Shrouds** (n) pieces that join the rigging of lower and top masts_

  


     The deck was much more pleasant than the brig inside had been. Well, of course it was. But as long as she had Syaoran with her, the prison hadn't felt confining, just uncomfortable. Outside, the wood she sat on was weathered, washed and smooth, with not a splinter to be felt, and the air was so fresh. After smelling nothing but dank, stale brig except when they were allowed out for dinner, the stiff sea breeze along the coastline was like heaven.

     Actual heaven would have been leaning her head on Syaoran's shoulder to watch the waves curl and cap themselves with white foam in the dark distance, letting the roar of the water and the rock of the boat lull her to sleep. But how could she? Syaoran had insisted that she wasn't to take a turn on watch all the days they'd been captive -- that it was his responsibility -- and so he hadn't taken even a nap the whole time. Now that Kurogane had come to help them fight their way home, she had to be awake and ready to go. More than that, she had to be ready to give both ninja her all.

     Several yards away, Kurogane was doing his part by staring down the quiet gentleman before they started their climactic battle scene (as Tomoyo liked to call moments like this when she staged adventure plays). She and Syaoran had the two young brigands, then. The mission they'd been signaled was simple, too: look for a way to escape. It was a difficult to see how they'd get past the two deckhands who'd been drafted to keep an eye on them without a fight, so she might have to do more than stay out of harm's way while Syaoran and Kurogane took care of it. That was okay. She could do what she had to do. No matter what, they'd absolutely be all right.

     Blocked in by the boy with long, light brown hair and a bandana on their left, and by the boy with darker hair and a pierced ear on their right... Lanterns held to the sides, making a sort of prison of light to keep Syaoran from melting into the shadows and taking her with him... Not being allowed to conk the watchmen on the head and start trouble while Kurogane was preparing to duel someone very scary...

     This wasn't going to be as easy as beating Syaoran at Go Fish, but they could make it work.

     "Would they get to it already?" the pirate on her left asked. "It's lookin' to storm, and I've got better things to do than ninja-sit."

     Syaoran's eyebrow twitched at that, but he kept his focus locked on the two men who really _might've_ broken into a battle at any moment. One of Syaoran's jobs was to always know what Kurogane wanted them to do, and he wouldn't be thrown off by the sky looking threatening or the clouds blocking the moon. Not like the pirate crew -- most of the bandana'd and bedraggled sailors had gone running off to hide when the four of them came up on deck, saying a big fight with no moon was one too many bad omens for bearing. Their two guards had been the only ones left standing, which made them the bravest (among pirate underlings, at least, since _no one_ could match Syaoran for that).

     The pirate on the right, the one to whom the lord had handed his violin, laughed off his friend's grumbling. "Come on, Asagi. You know what badasses are like. It's always stare, stare, stare, til they think they know what the other guy's gonna do. And then -- bam! Blink and you'll miss 'em."

     "I'm just sayin', no one on the 'Dragon of Earth' pulls this shit. They attack, you're dead, and that's that. Man alive, _when_ am I gonna get promoted off this ship?"

     " _Promoted?_ You're crazy, wanting to serve over there. A few planks short of a fo'c'sle, not that you asked me."

     "Watch who you're talking to, Segawa," the boy in the bandana snarled, summoning a little whirling mass of water like a top, then forming it into a blade in his hand.

     The one with the earring leaned back against the wall, content to ignore the threat. "You know they don't need _crew_ , I assume. But you let me know when you make lord class, okay?"

     She'd always listened very carefully to the way challengers talked before they went in for training fights at home, and was quite sure based on how these fellows spoke that Syaoran could have taken both the young men in under a minute. But they couldn't do that yet. Kurogane had given extremely specific instructions. 'Don't move,' he'd said, and when ninja said 'Don't move,' they meant, 'I can't risk this fight while protecting you.'

     But she could already tell the Sumeragi was serious business.

     So they'd be good. Then, there was no question, Kurogane could get them out. Fighters who visited Tomoyo's palace on training visits never lasted more than three seconds against Kurogane, even when they could make Syaoran fall back on his lightning element spells. If the Sumeragi were as strong as everyone seemed to think he was, the two of them might really end up having one of the storybook battles Tomoyo-chan liked so much. It was too bad she wasn't here to see it in person.

     "Say, Syaoran..." she whispered. Even if his eyes were forward, she knew he was listening. "If he doesn't carry a sword, that means he's a spellcaster, right? He doesn't look like the brawling type to me." The man in white was quite elegant, in fact. Brawlers were never that elegant.

     "That'd be my guess," Syaoran answered softly.

     On the right, the cheerful boy laughed out loud and winked at her. She must have been talking too loud. "Only the best spellcaster ever," he said, ignoring his shipmate's mutterings about ' _second best, you mean_ '. "Good eye, there, lass."

     "Kindly address the Princess as, 'My lady', pirate, or--"

     "Or as Sakura!" She smiled and pulled Syaoran back by the arm before he did something silly like picking a fight over a name. Tomoyo had declared her a Princess, to be sure -- making up new stories and costumes every other day for what country she might have come from -- but there was no need for all the fuss. It wasn't like any imperial family they knew of was missing anyone for her to be a real princess. "It's okay, Syaoran. I don't mind."

     Meanwhile, she used the code he'd taught her, forming her hand into the signal to look for an escape point and pressing it against his palm. He knew they weren't supposed to do anything to keep the guards' attention, so they could get away with as little fuss as possible. Ninja were at their best when people were overlooking them, after all, just as pirates specialized in being too theatrical for anyone to pay attention to anything else. Naturally, his face went all red. Syaoran didn't always like it when she held his hand. "I'm sorry, Princess. Of course."

     "Hey, chin up, kid." The pirate rapped Syaoran lightly on the shoulder (her bodyguard endured that valiantly, with only a small grimace) and gave her a nod. "I confess, milady. Cap'n Arisugawa gave orders you're to have rank from us. But since you were so kind, I'm Segawa Keiichi, at your service," he finished with a wink.

     The surlier pirate cleared his throat and jerked his chin at the deck. "Quit swingin' the lead, all of you, or you won't know to duck when the sky starts falling."

     Sure enough, it looked like the fighters were nearing the end of the 'staring menacingly' phase of battle. You could always tell when combatants were fully powered-up by the faint whirlwinds stirring up the dust around their feet and making their clothes billow ever so slightly. In the Sumeragi's case, the short shoulder capes on his greatcoat fluttered just as much as the hem, and the grey plumes on his hat bobbed proudly -- though he didn't seem to fear the hat itself coming off as she would've done if there'd been a real wind like that. Sakura retraced all the parts of his outfit in her head a second and third time, making sure she could remember it for later. Tomoyo would absolutely want to see a sketch of any outfit that moved that way. And she couldn't forget to include the glowing, greenish-white pentagram the Sumeragi had manifested, either. All spellcasters who were fighting seriously really ought to have magic circles, Tomoyo insisted. Syaoran used paper charms instead, of course, but he was primarily a swordsman. They had different rules.

     The Sumeragi's spell didn't seem to need a chant (of which Tomoyo might think poorly, but she'd have to give him full marks for posing with his coat blowing out full circle), so it was easy to hear the soft pop of air rushing in on where Kurogane had been. He and his sword flickered out of sight, not leaving a trace to show which direction he might have gone. Half a breath later, like a sudden rainstorm, glimpses of Kurogane -- here and then there before the previous image could fade -- flitted into view with his sword slicing down toward the pirate. The bolts of light that stopped Ginryuu traced out a perfect sphere around the Sumeragi and the deck of the ship tremored all the way to where they sat watching. No one dared speak a word just yet.

     She squeezed Syaoran's hand again, sensing an impact coming in her gut. The sparks all around the pirate lord flashed brightly enough to hurt and turn the whole scene white, but she couldn't close her eyes. Kurogane was fighting for them. The least she could do was pay attention. The sound hit a stuttered instant after the light, while the scattered afterimages of Kurogane's attack were wiped clean out of the air. As the whiteness faded and the deck washed back into view, Sakura could see waves churning all around the hull of the ship from the violence of the shock -- and still the feather in his hat was only nodding.

     If Kurogane hadn't been sure to succeed in his rescue, she would have wanted to ask later how pirates kept their hats in place like that. They couldn't have been pinned, since the men and ladies both took them off for bowing and such. Maybe next time she got kidnapped, she'd find out.

     "Does he really think he can get through the Sumeragi's barrier with a sword?" Asagi muttered. "I kind of expected more sense, bein' a legend and all."

     Keiichi turned to Syaoran while they waited for Kurogane to reappear. "Hey, kid. That sword -- Ginryuu, right? Is it enchanted or something? The stories weren't exactly clear."

     "That's because he's a ninja," Syaoran answered. Ninjas took a great deal of care, she knew, to keep their reputations as shadowy as pirates' were shameless.

     As for Ginryuu, Syaoran's own family had made it -- though one of Tomoyo's ancestors had given it to Kurogane's family generations ago. As the personal ninja of the imperial family, the Li clan had designed countless weapons and artifacts, none of whose powers had ever been revealed to anyone but the bearer. Not being the bearer, Sakura hadn't gotten clear details, but the Li were descended from Mihara Ichirou, who was said to have been a son of the god Clow Reed and who may have forged Ginryuu himself. If any sword could break through a spell like the Sumeragi's, that would be the one.

     Kurogane stayed hidden, wherever he might be, and the Sumeragi still stood in his place on deck, slowly turning his head to scan the area with his mouth drawn tight. All around the ship, the swirls of wind that seemed to come from nowhere twisted into ribbons of water and formed whirlpools midair. Their appearance seemed to set the pirate more on guard, so they must have been Kurogane's doing. Sure enough, the streams coiled outside the gentleman in white's magic barrier into six watery forms -- each one shaped like a ninja charging with a sword drawn.

     And for each form, the pirate threw a paper charm: five of the water ninja splashed into puddles on the deck, and the sixth took on Kurogane's proper appearance.

     Just at that moment, Ginryuu surged through the barrier, throwing sparks in every direction. The glowing circle dissolved (and the flashing lights with it) when the Sumeragi dodged. He took a quick step along Kurogane's line of attack, barely avoiding the sword, then...

     Flickered.

     And appeared an instant later on the other end of the deck.

     "What the hell?" Syaoran muttered softly. "What's a pirate doing flicker-stepping?"

     "Do you hear us complaining about your ninja using a sword?" Asagi shot back.

     Neither of their guards seemed surprised, either, when the Sumeragi and his newly reilluminated magic circle levitated off the deck -- all the way up the the height of the crow's nest on the main mast. She'd seen some pretty impressive jumping around the dojo back at the palace that necessitated the five-story ceilings, but this gentleman was clearly floating. That, Sakura was quite sure she'd never seen. Kurogane appeared to be cursing to himself as he dashed toward the side of the ship and bounded into the air. Well, at first, anyway. Once he got going, she could only see the black lines showing where he'd been as he ricocheted between masts to approach the Sumeragi.

     "Syaoran," she whispered as quietly as she could. "Can all pirates fly?"

     "I don't know. I've never fought a pirate lord. But... _normal_ pirates don't."

     More paper charms flew from the pirate's hand, meeting the ninja when he turned and exploding in the flash of a swordblade. Kurogane's path seemed to cross where the pirate was hovering several times, but without much effort the Sumeragi edged out of his way and continued his barrage of spells.

     "Flying looks pretty overpowered to me." Sakura tugged on Syaoran's sleeve and leaned closer to his ear. "You should learn how, too."

     He nodded with his eyes going wider every time the man in the white coat dodged like a firefly flitting around the sky. "Yes, my lady. As soon as possible."

     "And then you can teach me?" When Syaoran's only answer was to look concerned in her general direction, she smiled back at him. "Or if I learn first, I'll be sure to teach you!"

     "... Yes, my lady. Though I hope you won't be _fighting_ , Princess."

     Before she could answer, the bright flash of a blade struck through some of the rigging and the blur of Kurogane leaping toward the deck pulled it down after him like a net. The Sumeragi dropped down quickly, and another wordless flash of light dissolved the ropes to dust, but Kurogane was ready for the moment his barrier dropped. Ginryuu swung straight under the pirate's arms toward his chest as he appeared in the scattering ropes.

     Then, quickly enough that the pirate's afterimage still lingered while the dust settled, the Sumeragi flickered out and reappeared behind Kurogane. One slice to the neck with the lord's hand glowing the same greenish-white as his magic circle, and the ninja flew forward. Luckily, Kurogane was no normal man, or he might have easily fallen unconscious. Being at the top of his profession as he was, he managed to break into a roll and stand to face his opponent without the least delay. She could even hear the power-up wind surging this time as they both gathered their strength for another round.

     "Great. More staring," their surlier guard muttered. "Is this really necessary?"

     All of a sudden, while the two combatants locked eyes and settled into their guards, flecks of something white drifted down from the sky, practically glowing against the dark backdrop of the clouds and the churning waves. Ash or snow would have been her first thought, but Sakura knew she would have smelled something burning so near, or would have been able to feel much more cold in the air if the weather had been right for snow. However, when the breeze blew the flecks close enough to see properly, she was no less confused.

     Petals. And the occasional full blossom, intact.

     But there weren't any trees in blossom on the beach for a rain of petals to have reached them, let alone this many.

     "Sakura?"

     She whipped her head towards Syaoran, ready to exclaim -- he'd finally used her name without calling her 'Princess'! But she bit her tongue when she saw the shape of the petal he'd caught out of the wind.

     He'd meant the flower. Darn it.

     Her ninja looked more confused than she could remember seeing in years. "How can there be sakura blossoms? It's the middle of summer."

     "Oh, he _does that_ ," Keiichi answered, waving his hand at the Sumeragi. "Whenever things get dramatic. I thought from the way you fight you'd be used to people summoning stuff."

     "By channeling elemental ki, and I'd be able to tell if he were doing it. _He's not_."

     Well, maybe the atmospheric sakura was another special pirate skill, like the flying. Pirates _were_ more prone to showmanship than ninja were. But she didn't mention to Syaoran that she thought the shower of blossoms was sort of pretty, in that not-really-ninja-y, ostentatious way.

     "Just be glad it's not Lord Shirou fighting," Asagi said, stretching out his legs and leaning his head back on his hands. "Feathers. Everywhere."

     The nice pirate's head whipped around as fast as could be. "Hey! Kamui's feathers are awesome!"

     "Right, I forgot. _You're_ friends with Death Shirou, and _I'm_ the one who's crazy."

     While the pirates bickered, Syaoran squeezed her hand and nodded at Kurogane across the deck. The dark-haired ninja locked eyes for just a moment and as he lifted his sword into a one-handed stance formed his other hand into a signal.

      _I'll distract them._

     Sakura swallowed a gasp, pulling up one of her legs so she could stand quickly even before Syaoran made the symbol for "Get ready to run" in her palm. To send a signal like that... Kurogane didn't think he could win? Well... the lords _were_ the best among pirates, she supposed. And the Sumeragi _could_ fly.

     " _I'm just sayin'_ , the feathers are a bitch to clean. With sakura petals, you get them wet and they come right up with a stiff broom."

     "Okay, I'll give you that--"

     Both of the deckhands fell silent and pale as Kurogane summoned a wave out of the ocean that stood slightly taller than the masts, surging up behind him as if waiting for his signal.

     Keiichi looked back and forth between the wave and Asagi, then hissed, "Is he trying to capsize the ship?"

     "Lord Sumeragi would never let that happen. See?" And even as Asagi spoke, the pirate lord's glowing pentagram spread out around the whole boat, and the wave crashed down around it. For a moment, the entire scene seemed encircled in a sphere of churning seawater, but not a drop fell through. Those few seconds were all Kurogane needed to charge the pirate -- now inside his barrier -- though Sakura wasn't sure how this was going to help them escape. The crewmen set to keep watch on her and Syaoran didn't seem any less alert than before, and if the Sumeragi could keep swords from breaking into his shields, she had to assume he could keep fleeing captives from breaking out of the them.

     The flash of the sword and the flicker of their bodies was too fast for Sakura's eye to see -- a blur of motion that wouldn't let the dust lay still in the tattered wreck of the ship's rigging. And then, just as suddenly as they'd moved at each other, they were still. Kurogane was down on one knee, the pirate standing behind him with a handstrike paused just a hair from his shoulder. Ginryuu's blade was stopped no further from the Sumeragi's neck, gleaming in the darkness like a lighthouse warning sailors to hold their distance.

     No sudden movements now. Kurogane stood, and the two fighters turned about each other with slow, even steps circling around. Both pulled back into their stances, smooth and strong and with no focus in the world save what was before their eyes. A rolling wind pushed a cloud of sakura petals between them. They billowed and swelled, and the Sumeragi's lunge forward sent the pink storm spiraling outward. Answering at the same instant, Kurogane whipped his sword into a high block above his head and yelled out in a voice fit to shame thunder.

     " _Parlay!_ "

     The pirate lord froze in his step and all the floating petals fell to the deck in heaps. It was a good thing Syaoran noticed one of their guards kick over a lantern in surprise and was sure that moment was the moment to run. Sakura had been so busy thinking, " _Huh?_ " that she'd forgotten to do more than stand. But her ninja pulled her into a nearby shadow, and they raced as fast as she was able for the edge of the deck. If they'd waited another second, they would have been caught by the nice crewman, Keiichi, without a doubt.

     He turned to the surly crewman to ask, "Did he just say what I think--"

     "Yeah, he really did. Oh, what _now_?"

     "Asagi, they're gone."

     "They're... what?!" The watercaster whipped his head back at the place where she and Syaoran had been sitting a moment ago, then threw his bandana to the deck when he saw the empty space. " _Goddamn fucking ninja!_ "

     They were almost to the wall now. With Syaoran slipping them both through the shadows, they'd be invisible to most eyes -- as good as home -- so she chanced a quick glance backwards. It looked like the Sumeragi (who even managed to look elegant in his expression of silent, wide-eyed shock, which was quite impressive) had dropped his barrier from around the ship. The faint, greenish glow was completely gone. The pirate himself didn't shift an inch from where he'd frozen mid-attack. "Excuse me," he asked, the sound reaching her ears clearly despite the distance now that all the combat winds had fallen still. "Did you just say... _parlay_?"

     "What does 'parlay' mean?" she whispered to Syaoran as he helped her up onto the wall. Her bodyguard shook his head as he prepared them both to dive over the edge, looking just as confused as the Sumeragi and the two crewmen combined.

     "I have _no idea_."


	8. Hornswaggle

> _**Hornswaggle** (v) to cheat; to gain another's money or property by fraud_

     The roll of the waves outside beat a slow, grim march on the hull -- the only sound to be heard as the report they'd just received had stolen the voice of every pirate in the room. They'd been waiting here below, with jaws locked and hands clenched on cutlasses through the kind of battle a man might have killed to fight, all to hear... _that_. And when the silence finally broke, Kamui had to assume four of his shipmates had gone insane.

     More insane, anyway.

     In an instant, the cabin filled with laughter, from Lady Kasumi snickering politely into Lord Aoki's shoulder to Yuzuriha bracing herself on the bedpost to keep from doubling over. Arashi kept her her head, of course. She looked like Kamui felt: far too appalled to smile. Laughing was out of the question.

     "The _hell_ you say," Sorata gasped through his giggles. "I can't believe I lived long enough to see the Sumeragi tell a joke."

     If anyone else had given that report, he might have been laughing along with them, but...

     First of all, everyone in that room should have known better than to think Subaru would tell a joke, let alone a bad joke, _let alone_ when the situation was practically a disaster -- no thanks to one Fai D. Fluorite, King of Pirates. If the other lords didn't already understand that, then they should have noticed how blank their navigator's face had turned when they'd started splitting their sides. The Sumeragi didn't joke.

     Which brought Kamui to his second reason to be appalled. Ninja didn't and shouldn't ask for parlay. What in the seven drowned hells had happened on deck? And why in all the rest of them hadn't that kinky fucking dandy of a Pirate King let him do something about that ninja before matters had turned inexplicable? He wouldn't have _destroyed the ship_. One little armada turned to toothpicks, and he had to spend how many years living it down? The boats hadn't even been that well built! That didn't mean he was incapable of taking one ninja alive. Fai hadn't needed to bother Subaru about it.

     Then again, Fai might have known Kurogane would pull a low trick like that. Tricky people could sense when someone else was being tricky -- one of the many random things the blond flake was annoyingly good at, like dodging, punching, and baking first-class confections. One of these days, Kamui would manage to explain to him that even the _double chocolate chip cookies_ didn't give him the right to act like all of piracy was one big game of dress-up that he could twirl around at his whim.

     Although they were very, very good cookies.

     Whether or not His Grace had figured the Sumeragi's battle would come to this, his chuckle wasn't a chuckle of disbelief like the rest of the room's laughter. It was clearly a chuckle of triumph. "Ladies and gentlemen," Fai announced, and swung his legs over the side of the bed to pull on his boots. "I think you'll find he's serious."

     With that, the King had successfully killed every laugh in the room except his own. As he touched his toes to stretch, and as he hopped off toward the looking-glass, that laugh kept ringing like a faraway chime on the wind. Kamui felt his eye twitch at the sight of him prancing across the floor like this wasn't one of the more grievous breaches of right, propriety, and justice the pirate world had ever known.

     "Parlay, is it?" the blond asked. "And me without my waistcoat!"

     There was just something _wrong_ about that.

     As suddenly as the room had fallen silent, all the pirates objected from every side (except, again, for Arashi, who took a chair and rolled her eyes). "But he can't be serious!" Lady Kasumi gasped. "Ninja asking for parlay?"

     "That's like something you'd read in the _Daily Picaroon_ ," followed Lord Aoki.

     None of this seemed to reach the man who was already preening himself in front of the mirror like a cockatiel in mating season. Kamui knew better than to think Fai wasn't listening or that he couldn't hear, because whenever he thought that, it ended with the Pirate King appearing behind him to ask what he meant by thus-and-such. It wouldn't be so bad if there were any kind of warning, but no. He seemed to zip out of nowhere as if by goosebump-inducing magic, and all the while wearing a grin fit to whip the rigging. Safer to assume Fai was just pretending to ignore the lot of them.

     Because he was an ass.

     "This ninja does," Subaru replied instead, giving the crowd all the answer they were likely to get, then joined the King at his bureau. More softly, he told Fai, "Don't forget your cravat."

     Kamui's jaw just about hit the floor when the Sumeragi took a pile of silk lace off the corner of his mirror and handed it over. Wasn't His Grace's own cabin _ten steps down the corridor_? Could he not be bothered--

     No, of course he couldn't. What had he been thinking?

     "You'd think that if ninja knew they could parlay, they'd have done it before," Yuzuriha chirped, jumping up and down in her ankle boots. She and the rest of the council were understandably more interested in the odd behavior of the ninja than in the King's perfectly normal toilette, but not a one of them seemed as concerned as they should have been that a goddamned spy/rescue operative had gotten onto the ship under all of their noses, successfully impersonating a pirate and quoting articles out of the goddamned Code. He hadn't seen this kind of delighted commotion since the day Keiichi had realized you could make a pinata that dodged if you hung it from the jib.

     "Doesn't anybody care how he got his information?" Kamui snapped. "What if he's the reason the 'Pink Ross' went down? What if he tortured the crew to find out he could ask for parlay? And if I may remind you, any pirate who did that in the middle of a fight would be a laughingstock right now."

     The captain shrugged and ruffled Kamui's hair. Kamui _hated it_ when people ruffled his hair. "Yeah, but he's a ninja. That's kind of cool."

     "Besides, there's no reason why he would have needed to torture the anyone." Lord Aoki pulled his logbook and his pen out of his pocket and scratched out a few lines . "The Pirate Code isn't any kind of a secret. He could have asked normally."

     Kamui felt his ill humor coming out in a snarl, watching so many others take this so easy. "Since when does a ninja ask anything _normally_? It's always, 'Tell me what I need to know or you'll have to learn to walk without that leg' or something! Do you think _Kurogane_ will even respect the terms of parlay?"

     The Code couldn't mean anything to him. He'd probably be trying to run while the King was prettying himself up with that lace around his throat, no matter what Subaru had done to tie him in place. Ninja weren't gentlemen. He was trying to buy time to get away with the princess and her bodyguard, _obviously_ , and if Fai kept acting like this was some messed-up kind of a date instead of the tactic of an enemy prisoner, he'd succeed!

     "Just because ninja can be uncouth doesn't mean we have to be," their artillery mistress declared. As she cuddled up to the Oathkeeper's side she laughed again, all her surprise from earlier giving way to excitement. "Honestly, Kamui. You'd consider not granting a parlay? If I were Princess Kotori, I might call off your engagement for that."

     "For the last time, we're not..." He trailed off as the red-head hid a fresh giggle behind her hand. "If you know we're not engaged, _don't bring it up_!" Bad enough he got that from all the tabloids. He might marry her someday -- only one reason why he wouldn't -- but every time someone wrote it or said it like it was decided, he couldn't look Fuuma in the eye for a week. Pirates weren't supposed to have trouble knowing what they wanted.

     Karen the Blaze summoned a few flames to dance across her fingertips. "There'll be enough time to light some powder kegs if the ninja makes trouble."

     "He's already making trouble!" Wandering over to Subaru's bed, Kamui took a seat and pointed their attention at the blond who was adjusting his cravat and straightening his collar. "This is the man who took one look at an enemy he knew was Kurogane and said, 'Send him to my bunk, I need a piece of _that_!' How are you expecting a parlay? They're just going to have sex! Again! And then the ninja, who's probably _counting_ on that because that's _predictable_ , will escape. _Again!_ "

     Yuzuriha popped over beside the bed to poke him in the cheek. "And then we'll catch him... _again_. Don't you want the chance to?"

     Of course he did. He was even sure he could do it, even though he admitted that one-on-one wasn't a _safe_ plan for most of them -- which Kamui didn't point out, since Subaru didn't like it when people said he was special -- but all six of them together could take the ninja down. It was worth a shot. Subaru shouldn't have to clean up Fai's messing around twice in as many hours, after all. The navigator might never breathe a word in complaint, but that didn't make it right.

     "Besides, scoring during a parlay isn't against the rules," Sorata added with a nod to Lord Aoki. "It's extra points, right? Like, triple?"

     At which the council secretary pulled out his _other_ ledger. Because no matter how seriously Kamui tried to take any given situation, _nothing_ ever got in the way of figuring out the points for _getting laid_ in that situation. He kept hoping that the way Arashi always shot down the captain (and anybody else, but mostly the captain) would convince Sorata to take some pity on the rest of the people who weren't getting any and _didn't care even a little bit_. But no. He was right in the middle every time.

     "If you get five times the points for a ninja and triple points for a parlay," Lady Kasumi asked, "does that mean you get fifteen times the points for a _ninja parlay_?"

     Sorata scrunched up his nose and crossed his arms across his chest. "Just eight times, I think... But shouldn't we start with the base score? I mean, the man's hot, but is he a nine or a--"

     "He's a ten," Kamui groaned, and on every side of him the walls echoed back a room full of pirates answering in chorus. Even Subaru, who usually couldn't be bothered to have an opinion on that -- though he did sound like he just wanted the conversation over and out of his room. Besides, that the ninja _smoldered_ was more 'one of those cruel, incontrovertible facts of the universe that plagued his life' than 'an opinion'. The fact that Arashi had thrown in her voice, too, was all the proof you needed of that.

     And the betrayed puppy eyes the captain turned on her were, as ever, a sight to behold.

     Lord Aoki wasted no time in marking down the numbers. "He's one of a kind as well, which gives him a base score of a full hundred..."

     No surprise there. Kamui had thought it was obvious the ninja ranked with Fuuma as soon as he'd heard who he was. Or, he supposed, Arashi and Subaru each rated a hundred, too -- and technically _That Man_ \-- but his two shipmates were untouchable and if anyone had ever touched the Barrows-guard, he really didn't want to know. The bastard.

     "... Kamui! Are you listening?" Yuzuriha asked as she nudged his shoulder.

     " _What?_ "

     "We're trying to guess what His Grace's multiplier was for after dinner. You saw what they were doing, right?"

     He could feel his hair standing on end, so vehemently that it just about hurt. "Just part of it! And that doesn't mean I want to remember!"

     As she yanked his hands to pull him off the bed, Kamui got a bad feeling from her smile. Straight-up nausea, in fact. Probably less because of Yuzuriha's glee and more from being forced to recall certain events that pitiless fate would never let him scrub from his mind thanks to too many years of repeated exposure. "Come on! It's for a good cause. We need to know more than, 'He was tied up'!"

     Somehow, Kamui was certain it was no coincidence that when the lady let go his hands, he ran back-first into Sorata.

     "Captain, do you have any rope?"

     "Somewhere--"

     "No!" Kamui yelled. "No, no, no, no, no! _No bondage re-enactments!_ "

     Lady Kasumi's pout was deadly, but Kamui was pretty sure he was deadlier. "You look so much prettier in bondage than the rest of us," she sighed. "Even me." Lord Aoki nodded in agreement, too cool to be called 'begrudging' about it though he looked like it was a hard choice.

      _Must not kill my shipmates. Must not kill my shipmates._

     Fuuma never had to put up with this shit. He made up for it by having to serve with pirates who were the most murderous group of anti-social assholes ever assembled (except maybe Kakyou, who was just anti-social), but the fact remained that no one ever tied _him_ up because they thought he 'looked pretty' that way. But these were good people, who always had his back in a fight, and if he snapped on them, Fuuma would be sad, and Kotori would be sad... and maybe Subaru wouldn't care as long as it was what he really wanted, but it wasn't what he really wanted. Moreover, it wasn't _what Subaru would do_.

     Subaru had dignity. He just had to brush someone off, and they'd stop bothering him, usually for at least a month. Times like now, when Kamui's fellow pirates were shoving him left and right and posing Sorata around him, he could try to push their hands away and he could try giving them the long-suffering look that Subaru was so good at, but it didn't work. At least they weren't getting out the rope. With a sigh, he let Yuzuriha push him onto his knees and put his hands behind his back when Lady Kasumi asked about how Fai had been tied. He could trust the people on the 'Dragon of Earth' not to actually do anything, and the fastest way to get out of this was to ignore his shipmates while they figured out whatever they felt they needed to figure out.

      _That's_ what Subaru did, and someday Kamui knew he'd manage it just as well.

     In fact, across the room, the Sumeragi was ignoring everything _right now_ and staring into space. It wasn't his normal look, though. It was the one he only got when the 'Dragon of Earth' sailed to meet them. No one but Yuzuriha liked it when that lot showed up, and even she didn't care for the hell ship's navigator, but they could all tell it bothered Subaru most. They didn't know why, exactly, and Kamui didn't plan to tell his friend's secrets. Even so, he didn't comprehend how they could see that look on his face now without realizing. He was in love with the Barrows-guard. So much it hurt, though That Man had surely never done anything to make it hurt less.

     Fai could tell. Kamui saw a similar look in the King's eyes sometimes. Not as often, since he was good at hiding.

     But sometimes.

     As he focused in on the two of them, he caught a snatch of the blond murmuring. "-- glossed over the status of our Princess," he said. Kamui did his best to tune out the ruckus around him and listen for more. "Unharmed, I hope?"

     Just as he was about to yell at the pirates hovering around his head to gag the talk about points, because the hostages were actually _important_ , Subaru met his eyes and hinted with a quiet glance that he should keep his mouth shut. So shut it he did. "Gone," the navigator replied, barely above a whisper. His tone was as gentle as ever, but decidedly unapologetic, which was odd. Subaru usually sounded sorry for everything that went wrong, whether he'd done it or not. "Princess Sakura and her companion managed to slip away from their guards on deck during the commotion, but the crewmen in question shouldn't be reprimanded. I take full responsibility for the situation."

     "I'm sure."

     The volume around him kept escalating, making it hard to hear if anything else was being said over where he cared what people were saying. 'Gone' was clear, but not clear enough. Then, just a fraction of a second before it was too late, he realized the captain and Lady Kasumi were pushing him forward -- slowly, but enough to put him past where he could balance on his knees -- and he ripped his hands free to break his fall.

     "It's no good," Yuzuriha said. "We can't expect him not to catch himself if we don't tie his hands."

     "Hey, if he says no, then we don't tie him up!" Sorata answered. Which, certainly, Kamui appreciated, but he would have rather heard what Fai was planning to do about the lack of a Princess. Since he'd refused to explain to anybody why they needed her, the answer was hardly obvious.

     "Well, the angle's right, and I don't know what other surface would lend itself to a drag mark. But Kamui," Lady Kasumi asked, leaning closer to get his attention. "I know His Grace was the one tied up, but could you tell who was really in control?"

     He gritted his teeth, holding in the retort that he had a very important conversation to eavesdrop on just two yards away, and brushed the dust from the fall off his jacket and pants. "Just give him _some_ bondage modifier!" Kamui complained. "I don't know if it was prisoner or reverse-prisoner, and I don't want to!"

     "I'll lay odds on a fifteen-x modifier, all told!" Yuzuriha cried out with a laugh. "His Grace always manages double digits."

     "But did you see the look on his face? I think I'm in for a twenty..." The gunnery mistress drummed her fingers on her lips, looking more deep in thought over the neverending questions of whether Fai was topping from the bottom than the King himself was about the circumstances of _their hostages' escape_.

     Kamui let the others lead him over toward the berth, straining his ears to listen across the room and paying a mighty ignorance to the way Sorata gently mimed slamming him cheek first into a bedpost from a few different angles. Fai, meanwhile, ruffled his hair out of the pillow-squashed state it'd acquired on Subaru's bed and ran a fingertip back and forth under the rough mark that everyone on the council found so worthy of investigation. It still looked ghastly, but the swelling had subsided quite a bit while they'd been waiting for Subaru to come back. For all the discoloration spreading over the arch of the bone and for all the violent redness where the skin had broken through, the shape was very nearly symmetrical with the other side of his face. From the way he smiled, he seemed quite satisfied with it.

     But, damn it, what had happened? If the girl and her ninja bodyguard could 'slip away in the commotion', did that mean Subaru had let them out of the brig and kept them on the deck? Their facilities for imprisoning ninja were second to none. The kid may have been good, but that kind of timing was beyond good. All he could think was that Subaru hadn't even tied their hands, for that kind of escape to be possible, which meant he could have only drafted the greenest recruits on the ship to watch them.

     Had Subaru... been trying to let them escape?

     No wonder he wasn't sorry. Kamui knew for a fact the Sumeragi would never apologize for anything he wanted; he was just sure there was only one thing in that category, which had nothing to do with any Princess.

     He watched the King turn from the mirror to give their navigator his sad look. The subtle one that he usually kept in his pocket, not the pouty, pitiful one. "Oh, Subaru." The words were soft, but not quite as soft as before. Shaking his head, the blond buttoned up his cuffs. "Did she remind you _that much_ of how you used to be?"

     "You mean ... the girl?" The words were just loud enough to be certain he'd heard them right, even over the banging of Sorata's knee against the footboard and the general commentary of 'No, it didn't sound quite like that'.

     The statement didn't make any sense. Subaru had said he'd known Fai when they were younger -- before whenever That Man had killed his sister -- though Kamui had never gotten to hear more. It was more than anyone else had been told, anyway. He had worked that out before long, so he kept the confidence locked away. But no matter how he pictured Subaru when he was young, the dainty, frothy innocence of the Princess didn't fit. Subaru himself didn't seem persuaded, either, nor like it had been his reason, but Fai shrugged and shook out his sleeves. "I thought her eyes were like yours," was all the more explanation the King gave.

     Even the lighthearted roar of bickering brigands felt like silence while he waited for whatever Subaru had to say to that. At last, the navigator placed the hat he'd been wearing on an empty hat stand and gazed at it as if he were tracing every bend of the feathers into his memory. The turn of his mouth was just as thoughtful, just as distant, as when he stared out the window at the night sky. "I wouldn't recall," he answered, and walked off to his desk without another word.

     "At any rate," Aoki said, breaking into the Ladies' and Sorata's dramatic restaging. "I think we can safely say his end totals for that were over two thousand. And if anything happens during the parlay, I think we can assume his usual level of escalation..." As he quietly scribbled away, Lady Kasumi stepped over to look, and her eyes widened a bit when she checked over his calculations. "We can't forget that the combo modifier doubles everything, either. Captain Doumeki may have competition for this year's fruitcake after all."

     As soon as his hands were free, Kamui broke from the space by the bed and growled, " _Your Grace_ , if you don't mind a point of procedure."

     "Kamui!" Fai turned around and clapped his hands together with his brightest grin. "And here I thought procedure was Lord Aoki's calling."

     He stormed over without pause, nor the least concern for the King's commentary. "You plan to handle a parlay _yourself_?"

     "Oh, that is _definitely_ the plan. The very first parlaying ninja! How could I resist?"

     "So you've forgotten that you're _not an officer_? The ranking _officer_ takes parlay, and that's Captain Arisugawa. You're just... _you_!"

     "Objection denied. There are benefits to being me." Humming a light tune, he opened a drawer to take a long, silver brocade sash that Kamui couldn't recall Subaru actually having worn. The blond waved it in the air for the navigator to mark. "May I?"

     The Sumeragi nodded his consent, as Kamui meanwhile fumed fit to burst. Was no one on this ship planning to respect the true spirit of a parlay? He could feel every hair on his head standing on end as he watched Fai turn back to the mirror. Without a care for anything that _mattered_ , the blond folded the sash in half longways and draped it around his neck. All his attention was on flattening the brocade out smoothly enough, wrapping it in criss-crosses around his shirt neatly enough...

     At least no one had ever had to ask why Kamui thought he was a fop.

     "C'mon, Kamui. I really don't mind if he wants to have sex with the ninja again, you know?" Sorata said, laying a hand on his shoulder.

     He let out a sigh, feeling like his entire body dropped six inches down when the air left his lungs. For some reason he could never fathom, it was impossible for anyone to stay angry once Sorata started asking him to cool down. Kamui was very nearly certain that was why the man had been put nominally in charge of the ship.

     "I _might_ not have sex with him," Fai laughed, as if suggesting that it _wasn't_ the plan.

     "Yeah, I'll believe that when I see--"

     The captain clapped a hand over Kamui's mouth. "He _will_ invite you to watch if you say that," Sorata hissed into his ear before dropping his hand again. "Don't think he won't."

     With a dejected sigh, Kamui wandered back across the room and collapsed onto Subaru's bed. "Why do _you_ have to be the Pirate King?" The day might come when that fop justified his authority with more than an absurd ability to make whatever he did work, but Kamui didn't count on being around to see it. Presently, the King was using his talent for pulling impossible skills out of his ass to hold the overlapping layers taut on his little makeshift waistcoat so that he could tuck the ends of the sash neatly underneath. And it looked fucking fantastic, which was the most absurd part. "We have a royal family. _Fuuma_ could be the Pirate King!"

     "You're just saying that because you want to be his Pirate Queen," Fai shot back.

     Sighing yet again, he picked up his hat where it had fallen aside when he flopped and pulled it over his face. No doubt the tabloids would love to quote that, if they ever heard it. Which he'd see they never did. "That's not even funny."

     "You know that once Lord Monou takes the throne, he'll be far too busy to sail the blue oceans day in and day out," he answered. Kamui pushed up just the corner of his hat enough to see the King walk across the room to throw on his coat. " _Toujours, tout le temps, sans cesse..._ " With a flash of a grin, he pulled his collar and cuffs sharply into place, then swept the cockaded and feathered hat from the wall onto his head. " _La piraterie, c'est moi!_ "

     "I hate it when you speak French."

     It was also painfully annoying how that ... that _blond_ ... could roll out of bed and make himself look fit to grace the throne room in under ten minutes, dressed in little more than pajamas and a scarf.

     Life was _not fair_.


	9. Well, Blow Me Down

> _**Well, Blow Me Down** (excl) used to express amazement or disbelief_

     Tonight was certainly a night for late strolls, Fai thought. And the close, wooden halls had that feeling of lonely timelessness that sometimes haunted the wee hours. He stretched his arms over his head, working out the comfortable discomfort of late turning early as he took the stairs down to the brig where his parlay waited. The crew had all made themselves scarce, but no matter. The ship herself felt more like a companion to him than sailors who drifted in and away, like specters and dreams as the years passed.

     He could live for countless centuries, he was sure, and never feel out of his time as long as a man like that ninja could walk into his life. He made the room reverberate with the same strength as the ancient men who'd been made into legends and gods by history.

     That Kuro-tan could hold his own in a fight against anyone -- even Subaru -- was no shock. Twenty years ago, he'd been the young prodigy who'd fought to a standstill half of the previous Council, in the form of all four Ryuudo brothers. A talented little kid, he'd thought, and true to promise the ninja had grown up even more impressive. But who could have expected he would walk alone through the front door to take the Princess and succeed? And by exploiting the Pirate Code itself, too.

      _Parlay_. Of all things.

     He couldn't wait to find out what the ninja wanted to 'discuss'. Once he was outside the brig, he could feel every heartbeat as he waited and listened with a grin he couldn't quell. The faint scrape of a chair leg on the floor said that his ninja hadn't escaped. Subaru had _said_ he'd bound the man's hands -- as one simply had to do to keep ninja anywhere -- and he'd said Kurogane had suffered it with the air of someone who expected escape not to trouble him. That being the case, he'd been 'extremely thorough' about it. No doubt that meant there was magic involved. Knots were no more secure than rope was impervious to a blade -- often less so, when ninja were concerned. The young Syaoran had given them trouble enough, trying to break Princess Sakura free in the week past.

     Well, the girl might have required a change of tactic anyway. She clearly wasn't the type to form alliances with her captors, at least not with her boyfriend around. And besides, he'd gotten his extremely rare Kuro-danna in exchange -- one of a kind, just like Aoki had said. Really, the disappointment of losing the Princess was more than compensated for.

     Lifting the latch as he bit his lip, Fai swept into the brig. And didn't Kuro-puu make a pretty picture, all trussed and tied to his chair? Eyes like that outshone even the watchfires on the walls of Yuuko's own fortress with the way they promised to spy every false move. Quite ravishing. Granted, the spread of fruits laid on the table next to him -- parlay _did_ demand some hospitality -- had done him no good, but he wasn't likely to have eaten anything even if he'd been free. As it was, one could hardly tell he'd been struggling against Subaru's ropes at all. Fai stepped closer, passing into range to see every detail.

     The lashings crossed over his ninja's chest had pushed his shirt open far enough to see collarbones shining with a light sweat in the lamplight. The faintest hint of rope burn glowed pink on his skin. And if he looked hungry... well, it was for something other than the apples and pears just in from the mainland. Fai would have said that luck was smiling on him if he hadn't known that bastard Clow was in charge of luck, and Clow only smiled when someone else's pants were (literally or metaphorically) on fire.

     The man in front of him was as close to relaxed as a man could look with his wrists knotted up behind a chair back and his ankles lashed to the chair legs. All his experience with ninja over the years told him that so much ease meant his captive had a _plan_ , though the shape of it was as yet unclear. Kuro-nin's attention seemed fully fixed on delivering Fai the ever complimentary 'up and down'. Without bothering to hide his grin, Fai took a seat on the edge of the table. His captive audience could take as good a look as he wanted. Fai knew when a man liked what he saw.

     "Well, now you look the part."

     "I've always cleaned up well," he answered, and nicked a pear off the table behind him. "Since I heard you wanted to talk to me..."

     "Sorry, haven't had a chance to change myself."

     No one present had complained about the shirt tattered almost into nonexistence, nor about the worn breeches as far as Fai recalled. On the contrary, that aesthetic flattered the ninja's sturdy build. Politesse might usually demand that he, as host, return the jacket the ninja had worn aboard, but Fai had no intention of it. Kurogane had left it behind after making romantic overtures, which made the jacket his if he wanted it -- and he did. Fai couldn't remember the last time one of his bedfellows had left something that he hadn't thrown out the door behind the man, but there was a first for everything. So with a shrug, Fai pulled a knife from his boot and cut a slice from the pear in his hand. "I'll forgive you, since it's your first time at parlay, Kuro-kicchi." A pair of red eyes studied him, flickering fiercely at the nickname. "Though you must tell me where you picked up the notion. I think we'd know if it had been added to the ninja training manuals."

     "Like I'd tell you that. You said you know me; you should know I take secrets to my grave."

     "Oh, you're so serious, Kuron-pi."

     He thought he'd seen it earlier, when they'd had their last discussion on the floor of his cabin, but he'd been too _occupied_ to be sure. Now he was certain: even through his ninja's battle face, each nickname earned him another twitch of an eyebrow. More fun for him.

     "We can hardly have a conversation if neither of us says anything the other doesn't already know. So why don't I start?" he went on, playing up a sorrowful pout. "To be honest, it's my privilege to provide suitable attire to a guest who asks for parlay, as they're usually without the means, but I'm afraid you're broader in the shoulders than any of the lords present. That, and Subaru considered you a flight risk."

     "Your Sumeragi's nothing to trifle with. I'll give him that. And to look at him, you wouldn't think he was much more than a boy." He narrowed his eyes at Fai, who kept smiling as he ate his bit of pear. "That said, I've fought some of the previous Pirate Lords. Before the rest of your crew's time -- but I'd swear he was there, just as he is now."

     "Mm-mm," Fai answered, shaking a finger. "I told you, _Kuro-wanwan_. If I spare you those details, it's for your own good. What happens to men who involve themselves with demons..." He sighed at the lift in his ninja's eyebrow and ate another slice from the fruit. "Well, I suppose it's in the eye of the beholder whether you're less than human afterwards or more, but believe me --"

     "So which are you?"

     He stopped mid-bite to stare down a man doing his best to look right through him. Fai had met a very few people who were better at that, but that wasn't bad. How many years had it been since anyone had taken that talk seriously? More than he could count -- not that he intended to let any surprise show. A calm swallow, then a smile. He could depend on a smile. "Which am I?"

     "You're the one I want to know, not him," he said, and Fai felt a warm shiver all over from the unforgiving tone in the man's voice. ' _I want to know_ '. It had a dangerous ring to it, as if Kurogane realized exactly how unreasonable a desire that was. And even though the ninja's eyes focused in on his own, he could feel their glance like a brush on his bare skin. Odd, to think someone could make him feel suddenly naked, just with a few words and a look, when he'd always felt decent stripping down to nothing. But stripping down on purpose wasn't like getting caught ironing your shirt while wearing just your socks -- and by a man who could make every cheek you had blush. "Whatever line he crossed, you did, too," his companion followed on his silence. "Don't try to lie."

     And there was no way the ninja was working with something Yuuko had told him -- there wasn't a creature in the world who could afford that kind of information. Seishirou catching up Subaru in his game. He, falling in with Ashura and watching his love go mad. He and the Sumeragi might be as different as night and day, but they had both, without a doubt, sailed right past whatever 'line' that was. Fai had a feeling Kurogane thought that meant something other than it did, but he didn't need to _explain_ just because he didn't want to think of a lie good enough to get him out of that conversation.

     The pear and the knife went down on the table, and he laid his hat to the other side as he played off his ninja's serious eyes with a chuckle. "We're not exactly the same, Subaru and I," he answered. Hopping off the table, he took the two steps to the chair and leaned in so they were face to face. Not a touch, though. They were _just talking_. Until he figured out the ninja's game and how best to win it, talking was all he planned to indulge in. "Maybe you'd be safer with him, lover. Subaru never messes around."

     The ninja's glare didn't waver, he noticed with a nearly honest smile. That hot-out-of-the-oven studmuffin was going to have to learn that ninja weren't the only ones who could keep a secret when they wanted to. Holding lightly to a corner of the chair back, Fai wound his way behind his guest. "Messing around is my _specialty_ , though."

     A quick glance down at the man's hands showed that they were a bit worse for the wear than his chest. Proper rope burn, verging on being rubbed raw, and a bit of frayed rope to show for it. He couldn't see a blade, but there had to be one somewhere to make those cuts in his bonds. So, escape was at least part of the goal.

     "You didn't mind it before," he hinted, brushing his thumb across the lovely piece of real estate where the ninja's neck met his shoulder. And then trailing both his hands down the ropes pinning his chest to the chair... and possibly grazing his skin a little, too. So much for not touching.

     No problem. The way the ninja breathed heavier and smirked said he liked it. "Could have been better."

     Fai let out a tiny scoff, basking in the confident ring of what some might have called an insult. A pleasant scent of eau d'exertion tinged the man's dark hair as he leaned close enough to whisper, "Is that a promise?" against his ear. He had to admit, he was hoping when he stepped around to straddle his enemy's lap that he might see Kurogane taken aback. Taken off guard. It was a very pleasant surprise to see him staring hard instead and halfway to the snarl of a wolf set to rip out his prey's throat with his teeth.

     In the good way.

     The ropes creaked and complained and dug a little tighter into the ninja's skin when he pulled on them to draw himself closer in. He brushed their noses and laughed. "Because you know, Kuro-rin--"

     "It's _Kurogane_ ," the man corrected, his breath making Fai's lips tremble.

     He took a moment to enjoy the shiver dancing up and down his spine, and wrapped his arms around the ninja's neck. "If you really want to fuck me again," he murmured, close enough for Kurogane to taste his words. "... I'd advise _against_ asking if I'm older than I look."

     It was possible he'd left his mouth parted inside his companion's threat range to see if he'd take the bait. He didn't have to wait too long to find out the answer was 'Yes'. The ninja laid claim to a kiss practically before his words had stopped. Fai felt like a starving man on his second bite of food, as it rushed past his consciousness into a third and a fourth with the sensation of taste and feel lagging an instant behind. His mind caught up to his body to find himself pitched into the kiss, from his toes on the floor to his thighs feeling the cut of the chair to his tongue playing a reel against his new lover's.

     He'd definitely wanted to play it cooler than this, even if any plans of staying hands-off had been doomed to fail as soon as he'd seen Kurogane all wrapped up like a present. The chance to trail his fingers down the solid chest hiding under those weather-beaten rags was all he'd wanted for the past little while, but now that he could feel his ninja, warm between his thighs and close as breathing, anticipation filled him like a sudden wind in a slack sail. The unguarded moan breaking from his throat was his last cue to back off. Either he'd wanted Kurogane more than he'd realized, or that man was better at kissing than a man had any right to be.

     But a good strategic retreat didn't mean surrender. It just meant retaking control with a gleeful laugh at a fraction of an inch's distance. At least, retaking control of himself. He couldn't claim to have control of the entire situation yet, as Kurogane reminded him with a soft peck to the corner of his lips and a gentle brush of their faces as real lovers might do. The man was good. All a-shiver from tip to toes, Fai closed his eyes to better feel the breath on his cheek.

     "I don't care how old you are," that voice whispered, "but I think I'll do you best if you give me my hands to work with." The throaty rumble had to be calculated to send that thrill down his spine. It was too perfect -- not that he was upset. Honed technique was an excellent trait in a partner. "I wouldn't say no to being up from this chair, putting you on your back on that table. Though if you prefer the floor--"

      _Oh, dear_ , Fai thought, breaking out into a snicker. _Well, that was downright classic_.

     Exploiting your enemy's weakness for an advantage. Generally that worked better on enemies who didn't spend most of their time on the other side of the equation.

     "I prefer you right where you are, lover," he answered. Fai pushed himself back across the ninja's legs and stepped away. It'd been a long time since he'd enjoyed a parlay this much. "If you want your hands, you'll have to take them back yourself. You don't think I'm fool enough to let you run?"

     The ninja looked as amused as he felt himself, gorgeous mouth pulled into a brash smirk. "I haven't seen anything to run from yet."

     "Well, Kamui looked like he planned to change your mind about that." Fai could watch the shifts on that face through self-satisfied and confused and unimpressed from sunset to sunrise and probably not get bored once. So while he took his seat on the table edge again, swinging his legs like a child, he teased... and watched. "You really upset him with this ploy of yours, you know. He's _incensed_." And he had been, too. The first mate's hair was amazingly expressive some days, and today it had looked like pure violence. Maybe if Kuro-tan would have seen it, he'd have been swayed, but it wasn't likely. No sense pressing the matter, either. Instead, Fai cut off a slice of the pear he'd set aside before. "Now, won't you have some fruit? You'll make me out to be a bad host when you get home."

     "I'll pass, thanks. Don't like to eat within an hour before swimming."

     Fai met meaningful stare for meaningful stare and ate the slice himself, through a grin he definitely didn't need to fake. "Mmm. I love bravado. We don't get that from nearly enough ninja." Sighing, he set the rest aside for now. "Too bad you won't eat, though. You want to _know_ me, don't you? That's what you said. We have a saying in the fleet -- you never really know a man 'til you've shared his food."

     "I've heard that. But in your case, I think I'll need more than a pear."

     " _Sweet-talker_." Fai leaned forward with his face set in his smile. "If you're offering me another shot at you in exchange for your freedom, just say so. I might be willing to negotiate."

     Kuro-puu shook his head. "If I thought that'd work, you wouldn't be worth my time. No negotiations."

     Now he was getting a little too sweet, and a little too harsh at the same time. There was no way a man with Kurogane's reputation would drop everything in the middle of a rescue mission gone slightly wrong, just to play around, no strings attached. "We'll have to negotiate something if we're going to get out of this little mess. You see, I'm sure you can tell keeping your protege locked up was a becoming a problem. I'll admit that. You're better than he is, and you're not guarding someone; I'm letting myself and my crew in for a world of trouble if I try to keep you here. All kinds of vexation, and nothing to show for it, except maybe a good lay now and again. So, the way I see it, you're not worth _my_ time." There was a bit of a lie in that, but long-term it always ended up being true. The ninja didn't blink at the critique -- kept his peace and kept his eyes locked. "I could kill you, but I get the feeling it'd be just as much trouble and I wouldn't get anything out of it at all. Which leaves me with letting you go, and that's trouble, too. I'm sure I don't need to explain to one of Yuuko's men why I can't give you something for free."

     "So don't give me anything. I'm leaving this ship by daybreak, one way or another," he answered. "There's only one thing I want from you--"

     " _Clichés_ , Kuro-tan. Not a selling point."

     "--and that's an answer you won't put on the table. But you can't hide behind that mask forever."

     He'd see about that.

     "A mask? Don't be silly, lover -- you know how pirates are. What you see is what you get."

     "What I see is a crew of good men who wouldn't put up with your shit without a good reason." Without a response, Fai looked steadily back at his captive's glare. Then, all of a sudden, the glare _changed_ just as it had when the ninja had kissed him back in his quarters. His eyes weren't soft by any means, but they pierced him as if _he_ were soft. It didn't hurt like it should have, and he couldn't fear it breaking him enough to try making it stop. "So give me a good reason. Next time I see you, why am I going to put up with it, too?"

     When would that ninja stop saying things to make him blush? Fai hadn't blushed in longer than he could remember, and he'd had no intention of starting again. "Were next times up for discussion?" he asked, and immediately had to bite his tongue. The words had come out more hopeful than he'd meant them to sound.

     The answer was supposed to be 'No', but the silence he got instead was full of promises.

     Whether or not they ran into each other again, he wasn't going to talk about it. Any of it. Planning on someone led to having someone you planned on, and coming up with reasons to stay together beyond a passing mutual benefit was asking for trouble. "I won't give you reasons. A better man than me says there's no way to truly understand another person. You'll always be _someone else_ to them. I can't tell you what to think of me."

     Yet again, that hadn't come out as cool as he'd meant to be. The words might have been fine if he could have sounded more detached -- less vulnerable -- when he said them, but speech seemed to be problematic for him today. It was his own fault, really, for quoting Subaru to try shutting someone out. 'I can never understand your pain,' had practically been the words that turned them from acquaintances into friends. Maybe the ninja's eyes made him feel like he'd forgotten to breathe. He could handle a little physical attraction, and he certainly hadn't known the man long enough to be at risk of anything else.

     But. No more conversation, not if he couldn't trust his tongue and Kurogane was just going to sit there and let him hang himself with it. No choice but to get closer and change the topic, or to admit defeat in whatever game they were playing. That wasn't going to happen on his own home ground. Instead, he put on a smirk that was as close as he could manage to the ninja's own and strode up to the side of the chair. He stood close, one knee resting across the ninja's lap and drawing up against his bare chest. The unmistakable sensation of warm skin burned through his trousers with a slow and steady heartbeat drumming against his groin. With one hand, he raked his fingers into Kurogane's hair and pulled his head back while he traced the flexed arch of his neck with the other.

     "If you want to come find me, that's on you." Fai bit his lip with a pout, looking for a hungry shine to rise up again in his ninja's eyes. "There's nothing to negotiate, you said, so I suppose the parlay's over. Time for me to decide your fate. Or maybe you thought you could keep me entertained long enough that you could escape and 'incapacitate' me again?"

     "I still think that."

     "You might find yourself at a disadvantage, Kuro-sama. I won't be holding back."

     "Is that a challenge?"

     The glimmer in his grin was exactly what Fai had wanted to see. "Maybe," he answered in a purr, voice obeying his whims again now that he was right where he wanted to be.

     A sharp jerk of Kurogane's leg from under his knee shifted the chair and the steadiness of his perch just enough to send Fai plunging straight down. He had enough awareness in that instant to keep anything delicate from catching on the ropes in the fall, and to pull his arms onto the ninja's shoulders before he toppled over, but that was all. With a breathless start, he found himself back nose to nose, straddling one very cocksure brute, and this time already unbalanced before the kissing had even started.

     "Then bring it."

     Growling men were _such_ a turn-on. He could hardly be blamed for devouring his mouth in a kiss. This time he was ready to savor every second: the way the fabric in Kurogane's shirt sounded as he tore it the rest of the way open, the throaty laugh he could turn into a moan by grinding hard against his body, how the ninja's tongue liked to tease. Part of his curiosity from earlier was settled in fairly short order as his Kuro-han proved beyond a doubt that he was a better kisser than a man had a right to be. Thank goodness for little miracles. And he was different now than when he'd been playing the role of 'the pirate Breath-Wallace' in Fai's berth. Before, he'd felt properly invaded and ravaged, as if the man had been playing out a textbook model of a 'pirate's kiss'. Now, Kurogane must have been using a fully honed skill-set, because the luring caresses and sudden bites managed to set him at least twice as strongly ablaze.

     He couldn't separate in his mind where the breath on his ear stopped and the quivers running through his body began. "Coat. Off," the ninja said.

     "Are you ordering me around now?"

     "You know you like it."

     Well, facts were facts. He shrugged his coat off his shoulders and swung it around to hang on the back of the chair, playing with an earlobe between his teeth. He could imagine where he'd want the ninja's hand to search for space under his shirt or force him closer with a squeeze of his ass, and pulling himself in by his grip on a tightly muscled back or his fingers tangled in a mess of dark hair just wasn't enough. His skin was hungry. Oh, he loved the sound of a good, low moan when he scraped his fingernails across bare skin as much as the next man, and there was no feeling in the world pleasant in quite the same way as a good bite to the neck in just the right spot to cut off the flow of blood to his head. But all the little things, and even the searing and insistent bliss swelling in his cock every time they pushed against each other through their clothes _wasn't enough_.

     From some men, maybe, but he knew what this one was capable of; and if the difference in a kiss was so extreme as soon as the ninja was making love the way he did it best, what was the rest going to be like? If only Kuro-kyon had been willing to deal, they might have found _something_ worth the trade for freeing his hands, or untying him completely. It was so hard to be patient when he'd been promised a good time. He could swallow his frustration, swallow the words 'Let me cut you loose' that would call a forfeit in their little game, but that only locked it inside his blood, making him surge that much harder against the body rolling like a stormy sea below him.

     "What do you want next, Kuro-sama? I don't want a little handicap getting in your way."

     One tiny bite below his chin and a tug like nothing, and he could feel his cravat coming loose. "I can get the rest," he murmured through kisses down the front of Fai's neck that left his shirt falling open like magic and burned with a lingering heat on his skin after they'd passed. That was more than worth rewarding the ninja with the moan that welled up from the base of his spine and fought its way out to his quivering lips. "I'll let you unlace your pants, but only that. Don't even push 'em down."

     ' _He'd let..._ '

     Fai let out a soft laugh and pressed his mouth back into Kurogane's kiss as he pulled his hands down to the strings holding his pants closed. He needed a slight shift to keep himself balanced forward without his arms around the man's back or neck, but that was easy enough. Bracing his legs on the rungs of the chair, he circled his hips a few times roughly around and tasted the choked growl rolling off out of his ninja's throat.

     "Do you want me to get yours while I'm in the area, lover? Or am I getting ahead of myself?"

     "Just stick to the script, _your majesty_." With a rumbled command like that, he wasn't about to refuse. "When you're all loose, push that hand down inside. Nails and all, right down from your spine. You know where you want it."

     "Your wish is my command."

     Wrapping an arm around Kurogane's neck again, he rolled forward and did as he was told. One hand, dragging a trail of tingling scratches down from the small of his back slowly, flattening inside his pants and reaching two fingers to tease the ring of muscle around his opening. He thrust fore and aft with a slow rhythm, now pushing his cock forward and up along the ninja's abs to feel the sweet pressure building, now pushing down onto as much of his finger as he could manage inside his trousers. The touch teased just shy of ecstasy, and with every pass, he rubbed a little harder against the stiffening ridge standing on the man below him. Heavy breath and an occasional gasp were like ancient music in his ears that never grew old.

     Kurogane murmured against his lips. "Looks like it hurts."

     "Oh, do you think you were too rough before?" he scoffed. He hadn't thought any sign of distress would have been showing on his face, but he bent down to nibble the ninja's neck -- safely out of eyesight. "This is _nothing_. I promise, I can take whatever you feel like laying on me."

     "Hmm? That's good. 'Cause I've got a few plans for you." The easy, laughing groan as Kurogane stretched out his neck to give him better access just made Fai want to bite harder. And he did. Lots. His teeth slid over the skin hiding steely muscles, the earthy scent of cedar filling his nose. A good, solid smell for a solid man. A slight flex in the ninja's knees pushed him up as he surged forward, blinding him a little bit with a flash of rapture when his already shuddering cock met sweat-dampened skin harder than he'd meant. Then, as he fell backwards again, between his compromised control and the drag of his legs pulling his pants further down on his hips, he felt his fingers hit the spot. He didn't want to fight the instinct to let the pleasure shut everything else out of his mind, but he couldn't concede until Kurogane wanted it just as much as he did. Wanted it more.

     He _couldn't_.

     "I've had you so many ways in my head." The rough whisper fell on his ear, and Fai saw no harm in playing along. With a grin peeking at the corners of his mouth, he leaned his cheek into the caress of the ninja's murmuring jaw. "Heard you beg, heard you cry out. Felt your legs wrapped around me in silk sheets and taken you with your face against the wall."

     Maybe he didn't have to worry about how much his lover wanted him after all. In the middle of intimate moments, Fai preferred to believe every silly word was true. A different goal, then: to push until the man had lost the ability to put such pretty sentences together. He hadn't had a chance to make Kurogane speechless _once_ in their little affair, and that simply wasn't acceptable. In the meantime, he'd enjoy the feel of a man tracing the line of his neck with kisses and telling him he was coveted.

     "I've seen your skin shining like cream in the sun or gold under an oil-lamp, watched you spread your thighs to invite me in a thousand times. And however your eyes start, teasing or seducing or condemning me, in the end they always look like they do now. Telling me what you need."

     Playing the sweetheart his ninja seemed to want, Fai kissed his eyes, that looked for so much they'd probably never see. "Is that so?" he asked, leaving off playing with himself to search for the sensitive spot behind his companion's knee. _Just_ following orders was no good. He had to find out where the lines were, and what happened when he went too far past them. "When did you have time for all those fantasies? Busy night like tonight, I'd think you'd need your mind on your work."

     "Congratulations. You were a distraction." He bit his lip to hold in a chuckle when the ninja let out a low groan. Right spot. Leaning back with a hand on each knee, he sought out a matching place on his other leg. "And if I don't want you haunting me when I leave..." Fai ground forward, reveling in the feel of Kurogane's legs tightening and pushing against his touch, the way he tilted his head back to choke back a gasp. When he moved just right, he could feel the rigid press of arousal taunting him through both their pants. Closing his eyes, he arched his back and laid himself out so he could roll his hips where the man's hardness made the nerves around his opening sing for more. His chest heaved in time with the heavy breaths of his dark-haired challenger, and he licked his lips to answer a deadly red gaze. "When I get free of these ropes, I'll make you into every vision you've conjured up in my head. You'll still be feeling me inside when your ship's timbers have gone to dust, and I'll walk out of here with you as a memory."

     "I'll settle for still feeling you when you come back for more. You won't get me out of your system that easily, lover." Fai rolled himself up, clutching the ropes and whispering through kisses that let him feel the racing pulse in Kurogane's neck. "Please... let me touch you. I don't want to come by myself." He slipped his hands down under the man's waistband, pulling their bodies tighter together. His swollen erection called for him to buck, to push for satisfaction, but he fought against it until he got the word.

     "Fine with me," the ninja murmured. "If you're sure you can't hold it."

     With a smile, he hovered just outside of range to kiss. "Oh, I'll last a little while. I'm sure you've realized I'm not _fourteen_." He sat slightly back and, stroking the head of a cock standing nobly at attention, thrust his own along the shaft. Up and back, letting the sparks flying through his skin melt into moans in this throat. Rough breathing on his ear had taken the place of sweet nothings, but it was still too controlled for his tastes. "... letting go... is part of the fun, isn't it?" he gasped.

     "No wonder you had me sent to your bed." Kurogane bit at his mouth and Fai let him in for another kiss that tingled all over his inflamed lips. "I bet most men who try you can't shake that facade. Can't crack you. You can feel the rush, but in the end it's only a trace of what you're after."

     "Says the man who still hasn't gotten his hands untied."

     He'd never asked for more than the flashes of blindness and need as the moment peaked. Never wanted more than the release he could feel coming when he brushed a hand around each of their erections, stroked harder and forgot about control. The flush staining the tender skin, the shine of the fluid trickling out. The sights, the sounds... the scent of warmed bodies filled him up with the yearning that was the most honest thing between two people. It always had been.

     And in the clutch and spasm of the man beneath him, hearing that shuddering grunt, Fai gave himself over to the building ecstasy. With a tense shake, locking his legs in to keep from losing his seat in the feverish haze at climax, every other sensation disappeared behind the burst of raw exhilaration. Slowly, one perception at a time, the world faded back in. The over-sensitive hum through his falling cock and the warm gush over his hand, the brush of his lover leaning into his neck. He could feel his own pulse beating against Kurogane's chest in the heavy ease of their bodies falling together. He tasted the salt of his seed on his tongue before he realized he'd drawn his hand up and started licking it.

     But it wasn't until the ninja stole his fingers into his own mouth to finish the job, waking up his whole body for another whirl, that he noticed the press of the other man's cock, warm and still solid and unspilled, against his abdomen.

     "You bastard..." he whispered with a soft laugh. "See if I follow your rules again."

     "Doesn't bother me if you fight back."

      _Someone_ was just begging to have his precious control stripped away.

     Balanced with his hands on the ninja's thighs, Fai pushed his legs back and stepped onto the ground. "Well, _Kuro-sama_ , if you've been having fantasies, you can't tell me this wasn't one of them." He slid down to his knees, slowly tracing a taut stomach with his lips and tongue until he was in place to leave a kiss on the quivering head of the man's cock. And then a little more. It was almost as pleasant to feel the sanguine skin, smoother than wet silk under his tongue, as it was to hear the rough shudder in his lover's breath.

     "I _could_ tell you that..."

     He worked his hand around the shaft as he turned a pointed glare up at the red-eyed man he planned to drive out of his mind. "Let's keep _your_ lies to a minimum, shall we?"

     As the ninja's legs pushed open as wide as the ropes would allow, letting him lap his tongue as far as he liked, Fai heard the hissed breathing and soft groans of the mighty falling. If Kurogane meant to make a repeat appearance in his future, he was going to have to learn to abandon silly things like restraint. A chance to lose his head and act out every desire he thought he couldn't let himself have was the beginning and end of what Fai was willing to offer. And it sounded like his captive was starting to appreciate the service. Once he felt the push of the man's hips raising slightly toward him and heard him groan some rather impolite requests for more, he trailed up the slick, fevered shaft to press the head inside his mouth. Fai might have smiled quite honestly if he hadn't been so intent on relishing every tiny push against his tongue of a man years overdue for being broken.

     A quake passed through Kurogane's whole body, and he answered with a push of his own, swallowing the man deep inside. He hadn't counted on the hand that suddenly raked into his hair and pulled tight, the touch sparking through all of his skin and making him moan around the phallus in his throat. He'd meant to do that anyway, but on his own terms, not because he couldn't help himself when that ninja put his hands on him.

     He had to breathe, but there was no way he was going to betray how much that had shaken him. Pulling off slowly and blowing softly down the glistening cock, he asked, "So, what'll it be, lover?" punctuating the question with a quick swirl of his tongue. "Did you dream about spilling all over my face, or do you want me to taste it when you come? It's your fantasy."

     Fai cast his eyes up as he attended to the insistence pushing back inside his mouth even as the ninja answered "... surprise me," around his groans. His eyes were burning, just like they should have been. With all the abandon he wanted his lover to feel, he licked and sucked, and when that last sweet shudder happened drank down the bitter fruits of his labor like it was wine. A lively, spirited vintage with overtones of steel, he thought with a laugh. He might not say no to tasting it again someday.

     "Get the fuck back up here," his ninja growled, fisting a hand in his collar.

     With a smirk, Fai braced himself on the edge of the seat. "Make me."

     Not that he fought when the man dragged him to his feet. Much. His only time limit was how long it took him to get bored, and the grip the ninja had on the back of his thigh now was very interesting. He'd already been humming, and the sensation of that went right to his head.

     Then, without letting go of the pressure shooting new arousal through his veins, Kurogane pulled his leg up and forward. He knew just how to pull the bone in Fai's hip so that the pain was searing, mingling with the pleasure until he had no hope of keeping his feet. In a blur of being _handled_ , he felt flash after flash of his body moving by instinct without time for thought. The knee bracing him on the seat of the chair, the man tearing away his painstakingly improvised waistcoat and pulling his waistband down so hard it cut into his thigh. He pulled off his own shirt and cast it aside, gasping at the ninja's tongue on his chest. When the electrifying touch on his thigh faded into a caress up his side, Fai felt his knee go slack and had to lean into Kurogane to stand. He could see, opening his eyes, a transported expression on the ninja's face as he did something that was so much more than teasing to the gratified skin below his nipple. The chain around his neck glanced off his lover's chin, the key hanging precipitously in the air, hitting his chest again and again as it twirled.

     He could feel it in his arms, now, braced on the back of the chair -- how he was pushing into the ninja's touch -- and he could hear how moans wracked his body. When one of the hands gripping his ass, pulling him in, drifted forward to stroke his shaft, he thought for an instant of saying, 'Wait... not yet.' He hadn't thought he'd be hard again so quickly. While the caress set him thrusting harder forward, there was still a bit of hurt to the touch... and if his body wouldn't listen when he tried to stop...

     But he slid his foot up Kurogane's leg, and over, bracing it on the chair again, and pulled his standing leg under his weight instead, opening himself up to let the ninja's hand fondle him lower. God, there was nothing wrong with that. The word, 'Wait,' died on his tongue, and he leaned into the hair above the man's ear to whisper, " _Harder..._ "

     The world was flickering in and out before his eyes. Orgasm was threatening like a storm on the horizon, and he was set to weather its coming winds with all his sails open full. "Give it to me," he pleaded in a gasp when a finger played against his opening.

     Kurogane circled him slowly, saying, "Tell me."

     "Inside... I..." He felt the same power that made his knees weak stealing his words before he could speak them, but he felt a touch within him shooting an intense savor through everything.

     " _Why... you?_ "

     "Why...?"

     The ninja's breath played against his torso. "Everything you do, everything you are... I swear, you're everything I hate more than anything."

     "Go ahead and hate me," he murmured, riding into the touches that set him aflame inside and out. "I don't mind."

     As long as he...

     "That's the problem." The ninja's words took a moment to register, and once he did hear them Fai couldn't be bothered to think about what they meant. He sometimes thought he hadn't wanted this touch or that so much in a century or more, but this time he was sure. He wanted this more than he had in a long, long time. Arching closer, his skin fluttered under Kurogane's lips reaching his neck, and delicious chills spread down his back. "How do you pull me in this way?"

     He wanted to laugh, but it came out as another gasp, and the first words to mind tumbled through his lips. "Dearest, I'm just picking up the gauntlet you dropped."

     Fai heard his own words, and threw his eyes open, forcing himself to focus on the golden key hanging between their bodies. He knew where he'd heard those words before. Hadn't Ashura whispered them, the first time he'd taken his pleasure in the demon lord's bed? He hadn't meant that. Never that. Though he fought to push the word, 'Stop,' out of his mouth, the wanting in every inch of his skin wouldn't let him say it any more than he'd been able to ask the ninja to wait.

     Two hands caught him as he started falling, guiding him down to sit, caressing his thighs, pressing up his back...

     "What's wrong?"

     This wasn't what he wanted. Not a pair of tender arms to hold him when he was weak. And this wasn't Ashura. He was fucking a stray ninja while he waited for the dawn, not making love back when he'd had no idea how deep that could go. But the words, 'Nothing's wrong,' were stopped in his throat like all the rest. He breathed out a strained moan, the only sound he could make, and reached out to kiss the ninja's mouth. Rocking steadily against his touch, he came at last, the feeling searing everything else out of his brain like he'd known it would.

     But when the haze cleared, he found himself pulling Kurogane's arms around his back and holding on tight. Their breaths mingling, their lips touching now and again, two hearts beating at odd rhythms hammering against his chest and slowing to rest. But this wouldn't happen again. He wouldn't have to let the ninja go if it never happened like this again.

     "This has been a nice chat," he said when he found his voice. He fought the urge to nuzzle against the man's neck, no matter how much he'd meant to play with his romantic notions. Right now, it was too dangerous. "Inconclusive, though. I really should give the Lords their vote in what's to become of you."

     Kurogane laughed against his neck. "I think I know what they'll say."

     He drew his hands down the man's shoulders and arms, which fell away without argument to let him stand and put himself to rights. His legs felt fine now. Barely a tremor, except when his lover's eyes looked at him with shadows of questions that they both knew weren't going to be answered. "I'm sure you do. So, fair's fair." Fai knelt to pick up his shirt and pulled it over his head, dropping the scarf as he stood on the table by his hat. "You gave me a head start. I'll give you the same," he said, circling behind the chair to take his coat.

     "And what then?"

     Fai trailed his fingers through the sweaty spikes of dark hair and leaned over to kiss him one last time under the ear.

     " _Like I'd tell you that_."

     He didn't look back as he walked away, placing his hat on his head and throwing the scarf over his arm. He didn't need to look back. If he did, the only thing that'd be waiting for him was a face and a man he well remembered.

     Naturally six of his seven lords were waiting in the hall outside. Subaru would be back in his room, basking in the momentary calm. Kamui was standing facing the wall, but he turned around (and then turned red as he dropped his face into his palm) as soon as he heard the door close.

     "Uh," Sorata began, scratching his head with a bright smile. "So..."

     "I'll tell you everything you need to know..."

     Fai cast his eyes toward the entrance to the brig. The council behind him sounded like they were one and all holding their breaths.

     "Just stay right where you are until I say, 'Go.' Ten... nine... eight... seven..."

     And like a burst of wind, the door flew open to show an empty chair surrounded by cut ropes.

     " _Six-five-four-three-two-one-go_."


	10. Davy Jones

 

> _**Davy Jones** (n) a name given to the evil spirit of the sea; the bottom of the sea, as personified in songs and stories._

 

     "Red sky at morning, sailors take warning..." the Princess murmured. She'd cast her eyes away from the face she was painting with sticks and berry juice onto one of the rough, scarecrow decoys they'd made, gazing at the horizon as if looking at a dream. A battle that was unmistakably Kurogane against at least six of the pirate lords still raged on the 'Dragon of Heaven' under the russet and gold streaks of the rising sun, but Sakura's attention seemed to be in another place or another time.

     "What's that, my Lady?"

     "It's nothing," she answered, shaking her head with a bright smile. "I think I heard someone say that once, that's all. Is that the last one, there?"

     Syaoran nodded, fixing in place the last of the darkened beach grass he'd used as hair. None of the three dummies they'd constructed from scraps on shore were a respectable match for Kurogane's appearance -- despite the lively grimaces and smirks the Princess had painted onto their faces -- but when they were moving fast, the pirates wouldn't have a chance to look closely. "This'll have to do. I hope they're good enough to draw the pirates below the waterline."

     Princess Sakura had made an excellent point that, if they were trapped below, the pirates probably wouldn't use their more destructive techniques. Damage under sea-level would put the ship at risk of sinking, and the 'Dragon of Heaven' herself was one thing they'd go to any length to protect. That was evident at every rank. The sailors who'd climbed into the rigging to repair the holes left by Kurogane's fight with the Sumeragi ignored the streaks of lightning and fire shooting past them as if this sort of thing happened every Tuesday. They seemed to have as little fear that one of the shots would go awry as they had of the pirate lords themselves, leaping like brightly colored, cutlass-wielding grasshoppers through the fray. How the Lady Kishuu managed her jumps and brutally beautiful form in boots with four-inch heels was even more of a mystery than the source of the white feathers that did, in fact, follow Death Shirou everywhere he went. Syaoran simply couldn't fathom pirates. The attack seal barking and jumping around at Black Cat Yuzuriha's command was the most readily explicable thing he could see.

     Except... the seal could only be Puppy, whom the Pirate Council had sent as messenger to retrieve the 'Dragon of Earth'. If he was back already, then...

     Then they had to work quickly. There was no way to say how much faster the seal was than the vessel he'd summoned.

     "And you can manage keeping the raft ready for us to get away?"

     She made a salute and smiled at him brightly. "I'll be all right, I'm sure!"

     Whenever she said that, he couldn't help believing it. And, usually, ended up in a daze as he stared at her for far too long without recognizing that time was passing or that the world was turning around him. He had to fight off the force of distraction with extra strength at the moment, since all three of their lives might be at stake if he made even a single slip. Unfortunately, his attempts to focus on doing something rather than being distracted by the Princess led to his last dummy sprouting a beard by mistake. Hoping she hadn't seen, he tore it off as quickly as he could and pushed the whole mess to where she could draw a face on that one as well.

     "Let's get these loaded up quickly and shove off. I don't think we'll have until sunset after all."

     "Going somewhere?" a deep voice called from a few feet offshore. Syaoran whipped his head around to look, and sure enough Kurogane was standing up out of the surf and walking toward them as calm as could be. He looked a proper shipwreck now, hair salted into peaks and bare feet picking up the sand, with a memory of a shirt on his back.

     Princess Sakura dropped her berry-stained sticks, running over to give him a flying hug. "Kurogane-san! You're safe!"

     "You bet your ass I am. Those pirates are a hundred years too early to take me out."

     Syaoran grinned despite everything to hear his master blustering, even though he'd seen with his own eyes that the match-up was closer than that. Off in the distance, the pirate ship had stopped exploding and the pirates were yelling to check the waters, but they were too late now.

     As he stepped forward to hand Kurogane a cloth to dry himself from what he'd pilfered of the pirates' supplies onshore, Syaoran saw more clearly the raw skin ringing his wrist and across his chest. It didn't surprise him that the Princess would have gotten kinder treatment, as a lady, but when the pirates hadn't asked him anything they might have seen fit to press Kurogane for, and when so little time had passed since they'd parted after the evening's battle... Why would they have...?

     He stammered, with his mouth agape, "They... they didn't _torture_ you?!"

     The older ninja shook his head to dismiss the question. "I wouldn't call it torture." Syaoran was accustomed to the man claiming that circumstances had been less difficult than objectively they must have been, but this was something else. His grin was more quiet than usual, as if he recalling some fond memory. "...Though I do think I saw my life flash before my eyes."

     "... _Huh?_ "

     Kurogane didn't answer. Silently, he let the makeshift towel hang from his hand as he cast a long gaze back at the Pirate King's flagship. The Sumeragi had appeared at last, having sat out the team battle. He and a man in blue, whose coat and frame Syaoran didn't recall from the council, stood on the ship's forecastle looking out into the morning fog. Bringing all of his training to bear, he could see that their lips were moving in conversation, but not a word of it reached his ears. It was odd. He knew he was using his listening techniques properly, as he could hear the waves striking the side of the ship, but every word those two said was hushed.

     His face, though...

     "Is that..." Syaoran trailed off, the name 'Fai' falling off his tongue as he turned to Kurogane and noticed yet another mark -- this one on his neck, and definitely not rope burn. "Is that a _hickey_?!"

     He was immediately sorry he'd asked. Not only did Kurogane turn to him with a shrug and a dismissive, "Probably," and not only did a thousand questions take over his brain (whose answers he didn't want to know!) of who, how, and -- most importantly -- _when_...

     The question had made Sakura look for what he was seeing.

     "What's a hickey?" she asked.

     He managed to sputter, "P-Princess..." before all ability to form words left his tongue. How could he have ever dared to mention something so tawdry and trite when she was in earshot?! And how was he going to explain without discussing topics he had no right to address with her? Would Princess Tomoyo have his head for this? Would the universe itself smite him for being crude in her presence? Was the universe smiting him _at this very moment_?

     Was Kurogane laughing at him?

     But all he could see was the Princess looking at him with wide, innocent eyes as she waited for an explanation he was certain he had no idea how to give. She was just so cute. And sweet. And perfect in every way. And... and he couldn't... Even if he understood that sex and making out (and the accompanying marks) were a well-known risk of covert ninja operations, and he'd blushed his way through all the unavoidable basics of theory, he couldn't tell that to _Sakura_! He only had to look at her, framed by the loose pink petals blowing on a sudden cherry-scented breeze, to know he never could.

     "Why the _hell_ does it keep raining flowers?"

     Kurogane's voice startled Syaoran out of his trance, and he held out a hand to catch a few of the drifting petals. Sure enough, the sakura filling the air hadn't come from some out-of-season tree. They'd simply appeared out of nothing, just like they had the previous night. "The guards on the ship said the Sumeragi does it, when he's being dramatic," he reported, summoning his sword as he saw his master summoning Ginryuu to his hand. Goodness knew, if the petals could reach them at this distance, they might not be safe here on land.

     All three of them turned their eyes back to the 'Dragon of Heaven' to see... no change whatsoever.

     "It looks like he's just standing there," said Sakura.

     The point was impossible to argue. He was. Just standing there.

     But as Syaoran took her hand and nodded toward the road home, a dark silhouette rose between them and the red sun, hidden behind the fog. It appeared without warning, just as near to the shore as the vessel they'd escaped, and the fog fell away before their eyes. A ship, anyone with eyes could see, with the dark figure of a shapely woman carved into the wood of her prow that Syaoran could sense was the match to the red-eyed girl likewise adorning the 'Dragon of Heaven', white hair and flowing gown cascading around her.

     The 'Dragon of Earth'. Where the crisp, white sails of the Pirate King's ship and the rounded wooden hull, weathered to a dull gold by the seas, were every inch the same as the pretty pictures all pirate vessels aspired to be, this vessel was everything he'd known a 'ghost ship' would have to be but could never imagine. The hull was coated in something black, and starting a few feet above the water it broke into gaps. Panels of wood rose like jagged teeth upward. He thought they might have been moving, but he didn't know what he was seeing well enough to be sure it was no mirage. The rigging was draped with seaweed and by the color the ropes and tightly furled sails looked soaked with saltwater. The strange shape of it breaking through the fog, however, wasn't what held his attention.

     A single man stood at the wheel, feathered hat and green-black frock coat marking him as a pirate but not as anything beyond a lord on the council. Syaoran had expected a monster after hearing the Sumeragi say who steered the 'Dragon of Earth'. Maybe that wasn't him? Looking as closely as he could, all he saw was a man. A man with one glass eye, disconcertingly white next to the pale hazel of the other, but a man nonetheless.

     Sakura watched the ship just as closely, though without a ninja's training she wouldn't have been able to see anything about him. She'd slipped into another strange trance, and Syaoran knew from the chill in his spine that, somehow, the man in the green coat was exactly what he feared.

     " _I cannot 'scape his talons when the barrow calls my name_ ," she sang softly, pulling more words out of the memories locked away inside her. " _He strikes from skies unclouded like a hawk no man can tame..._ "

     Syaoran's breath caught as he saw what she couldn't. The man stepped forward to the edge of the ship, drawing a slip of paper from his pocket and a pouch to fill it with tobacco. While he rolled it into a cigarette and lit it with a match struck on the stern, he scanned the bit of shore where they were standing. He could hear her? He'd never met a pirate with skill at hearing or seeing across distances as ninja trained to do. But there he was, doing it.

     " _... As cold and wild as moonlight, the pale glint of his smile, and as sharp as any knife his golden gaze beguiles._ "

     Before she could sing another line, he pulled her close to his chest. He'd heard the Barrows-guard could steal souls, and he'd be damned if the pirate or whatever he was would get his lady's. Even if he was scared, as the far-off man's one good eye focused in on them and seemed to shine an eerie gold just as Sakura's song had claimed. He grew more certain every second that nothing human could make a face that cold, but he'd fight until the end of time to protect his princess, from anyone or anything.

     "Syaoran?"

     As long as the Barrows-guard was staring at him, he didn't dare breathe or move, although he knew standing still wouldn't do him any good. The scene only grew more uncomfortable as the Sumeragi flicker-stepped into sight by the other pirate's side. Syaoran couldn't hear what they were saying to each other any more than he had heard what the Sumeragi had been saying to Fai, but he was just as happy for the silence. Anything the Barrows-guard might be saying to make a man who'd fought Kurogane evenly wear a face like a kicked puppy's wasn't something he wanted to hear. What mattered was that the Barrows-guard was looking somewhere else.

     "We should leave."

     Kurogane was watching the scene, too, and nodded with a frown as he gently pushed Syaoran and the princess down the path away from the beach.

     "But Syaoran," Sakura asked him again as she walked at his side, hand in hand. "What's the matter?"

     "You're safe now, Princess. There's nothing to worry about." The last thing he wanted to do was try to make her afraid of something he'd make certain wasn't a problem. Luckily, changing the subject was a skill every ninja learned in his first year of training. "Kurogane-san..." he called back. "I've never seen a pirate who does the things some of those pirates do."

     "Welcome to the big leagues, kid. You're better off expecting surprises."

     "But he was flying!" Syaoran protested. "And I'm certain I saw flicker-stepping, _at least_ three times! Flicker-stepping is a ninja technique, not a..." Trailing off as something horrible sprang to mind, his feet rooted themselves to the spot. When Kurogane stopped by him, he looked up and whispered, "They couldn't be... _ninja-pirates_? Could they? If they have ninja-pirates, why don't we have pirate-ninjas?"

     "Kid, don't make me laugh. There's no such thing as ninja-pirates," his master answered, flicking him in the forehead with a finger. "I don't know what's going on, but believe me... I'll find out."

     Both of them turned around for one last look at the ships before they disappeared into the rocky pass leading them from the beach. Scattered conversations made it their way, unmuted by whatever skill some of them had. At least, it was clear no one was pursuing them.

     "Kusanagi-san!" Lady Nekoi yelled happily, jumping across the distance between the ships to hug a colossus of a pirate who looked as rough as the ship he sailed.

     Even Death Shirou had stopped searching the waters for a trace of Kurogane. He ran the length of the ship and jumped up on the raised lip of the side, holding onto one of the thick ropes rigged to the sails. " _Fuuma!!_ I changed my mind! I want to be on the hell ship. Get me off this fucking asshole's boat!" he yelled, pointing a finger at Fai as the blond snickered behind him.

     Fai was the...

     Wow. That explained so much.

     A young man dressed in deep purple ascended out of the 'Dragon of Earth', laughing as he walked to the wall to answer. Before the man turned his head, Syaoran caught a flash of a smile on his face and rubbed his eyes hard, sure he couldn't have seen what he saw. He'd seemed to have Sakura's smile, one that was just hers, but Syaoran told himself it must have been lack of sleep playing tricks on his eyes. A pirate lord -- especially a member of the dark, fearsome crew of that ship -- could never look like Sakura.

     "No take-backs, Kamui!"

     " _In the brig_ , Fuuma! The brig! I interrogate people in that brig!"

     The blond pirate turned from the two arguing to look straight at the point where Syaoran and Kurogane were standing -- and Syaoran really wished pirates would stop being able to do that. They were supposed to need telescopes to see that far, not to have access to secret techniques guarded by ninja masters! Then, with a wink, Fai blew a kiss. Not, Syaoran suspected, at him.

     And not that Syaoran had needed to think too hard about who might have been making marks on his master's neck.

     "I may owe Watanuki an apology," Kurogane sighed, turning back to the road.

     Syaoran followed him, still holding the Princess's hand. "Who's Watanuki?"

     A few steps ahead, the older ninja shook his head and threw a look over his shoulder.

     "... Somebody who's takin' one for the team."


End file.
